


Like Ships In The Night

by kaara



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Drabbles & Short Fics Collection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-24 01:26:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 33
Words: 20,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14345076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaara/pseuds/kaara
Summary: And if it all goes crashing into the sea. If it's just you and me. Trying to find the light.





	1. it's not an actual apocalypse until someone starts quoting nietzsche

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chaleigh. good omens au.

 

.

 

Raleigh wakes up to an empty world.

He rolls off the bed, gets tangled up between the blankets that Chuck insists on piling onto their bed (demons and their delicate constitution, _ridiculous_ ) and hits the floor with a crunch. His mind registers the irony before he realises that it’s too quiet for two in the evening in a city like Hong Kong. He blinks, spreadeagled on the carpet as he listens for the familiar throbs of the city that never sleeps.

Nothing.

Just an eerie stillness that reminds him of abandoned churches and late night horror flicks. That movie about a walk through desolate woods at twilight and he doesn’t quite remember which because he’s seen too many throughout the years. He trips when he tries to get up, an uncharacteristic ache burning under his skin, and spends several more minutes on the floor.

“This sucks,” he says, staring at the ceiling as if it can offer him answers to questions he hasn’t asked yet.

The world agrees in morose silence.

When he stumbles into the kitchen, he finds a glass of milk on the counter, a half-eaten bagel on a plate next to it. Raleigh thinks of Chuck leaning against the counter, munching while the television rattles on in the background (sometimes he watches the weather channel, sometimes absurd reality shows just to criticise everything and everyone). That is what it _should have been_ , when normalcy doesn’t include a world that has somehow learnt how to hold its breath.

“Chuck?” he calls, staring blearily at the coffee maker. His voice echoes too loud over the silence. “There’s some weird shit happening right now and I hope you’re not part of it.”

Raleigh walks over to the balcony and the day is bright enough that he has to squint when he looks out. There’s the endless blue of the sky, the streets decorated with cars without drivers. Blinking traffic lights with tiny red-and-green men that run even with the absence of actual pedestrians. He stares at the traffic lights for a few minutes before something like dread kicks in.

“Hello?” There’s an answering echo, amplified by the abysmal lack of noise and he leans over the railing, makes a concentrated effort to sense something. Anything. “ _Chuck?!_ ”

"Quit your hollerin’, old man.” There’s a hand on Raleigh’s arm, much too warm to be human and Chuck appears in his peripheral. “I’m not deaf.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” he replies irritably, despite the relief rattling through his bones. He gestures at the emptied streets and raises an eyebrow. “You’ve got any idea what’s going on here?”

Chuck grimaces, teeth worrying over his lower lip. It takes him a while but he eventually says, ”I need to tell you something, yeah? But you gotta listen until I’m done. Q&A can wait for later.”

“What—”

Chuck levels a flat stare at him. Which shouldn’t work considering the fact that he’s wearing a multi-coloured oversized sweater that Raleigh has knitted for him during one of the longer winters, but the gravity of the situation supersedes his impulse to gather Chuck into his arms and worm his hands underneath that layer of yarn. Priorities. What a shame. He makes a zipping sound as he mimics a line over his mouth.

Chuck’s narration is clear and concise. A direct order from Below, delivered with the usual aplomb of a madhouse slaughter. The hospital in a small town somewhere in Japan. A nurse who isn’t really a nurse and a baby who is a baby as well as being the Antichrist, to be swapped with a diplomat’s newborn child. Raleigh might have made some sort of a strangled noise at that because Chuck pauses, green eyes flashing with flecks of gold and self-deprecation.

“The _Antichrist_?”

"I distinctly remember asking you to keep the questions for later, mate.”

“Are we talking about the harbinger of Apocalypse, the End Times is near, the Final Judgement is rolling into town kind of Antichrist here?”

“Didn’t know there’s another kind,” Chuck deadpans. After a second, he scrubs a hand over his face and sighs. “If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t want to do it. But it’s not like I can say ‘nah, maybe some other day’, you understand? They would’ve dragged me back for the barbie.”

Raleigh stares.

Chuck rolls his eyes. “Barbeque. Giant flaming pits of lava and things you’re better off not knowing. Not very original, I confess, but exceedingly efficient in getting their point across.” 

Raleigh exhales slowly, still trying to wrap his head around what Chuck has just told him. It doesn’t help that the silence around them is getting to him. It shifts like a corporeal entity, entirely too self-aware to be natural and there’s something unsettling about the brand of quiet that seems to be listening to their every word. Raleigh snaps his fingers, willing a chair to materialise so he can properly digest this new information, but he finds himself hitting the floor again when he attempts to sit down. It _hurts_. There’s a recurring theme here and it makes him feel like he’s the butt of a colossal joke he doesn’t actually get. 

“Yeah, you can’t do that.” Chuck holds out a hand for him, fingers barely sticking out of the sweater sleeve. It would’ve been cute if Raleigh isn’t nursing a sore ass. “Not here.”

Staggering onto his feet, he scowls at offending flat surface. “Why not?”

Chuck shrugs. “My best bet is that we’re in some sort of a vision. Post-Apocalypse. What the Antichrist considers as the perfect world after reset.”

“ _This_ is what he considers a perfect world?”

“She.”

“What?”

“The Antichrist is a girl.”

Raleigh groans, puts his arms around Chuck’s shoulder and buries his face into that scratchy sweater. 

 _Great_.

 

.

 


	2. with your mouth full of teeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chaleigh. stephen king's it au.

 

.

 

There’s a ghost in the basement. Something quiet and solemn that speaks only when the rain is too loud outside. Chuck sits in his room, listens hard because he wants to catch the words rattling through old pipes that sprawl from the basement. He isn’t afraid of ghosts, not any more but he still remembers the white-hot fear of things behind closet doors, underneath his bed. That monstrous _It_. He’s thirteen now and ghosts are more an object of interest than terror.

(Except for that little dark place of the back of his mind where it’s always midnight.)

 _Are you alone_ , it always begins. It speaks with the kind of stilted mirth of someone who knows too much but says too little. _It’s nice and warm down here. Why don’t you join me?_

There’s a movie Chuck watched as a child, when his babysitter was too busy on the phone to care and cannibalistic clowns grin inside his head. Teeth sharp and yellow, offering multi-coloured balloons and a home in the sewers. He thinks it’s the same modus operandi and he sleeps with the lights on when rainstorms hit the city, that voice going ’ _i’m waiting for you_ ’ inside his head.

The basement gets flooded one day.

Chuck comes home from school and his father mentions it in passing.

“Don’t go down there,” he says, shaking out the day’s newspaper. He sounds tired, like he always does. “We’ll get it fixed.”

It’s silent that night. Chuck takes shelter in bright fluorescent and the tight wrap of blankets; protection of fools. It rains rains _rains_ in his dream until he’s knees-deep in water and there are balloons sweeping just over his head, strings swaying in a tandem of impatient nooses. He screams but the world has lost its voice and Chuck doesn’t notice the boy until it’s too late.

 _You’re here_. The balloons nods, multi-coloured faces a gleeful pantomime. He wears a slanted smile that hitches enough to reveal teeth too sharp to be human. _I’ve been waiting for you_.

He doesn’t look like a clown. He looks like a boy from somewhere across the street, like something normal that comes to Chuck in dreams instead of nightmares. Golden hair. Blue, blue eyes. The water turns a deeper shade of red, coagulates thick enough that it feels like hands slathering over the hidden part of his legs. Chuck doesn’t even try to move and the boy reaches out, curls fingers over Chuck’s cheeks. It’s a gesture intimate and pervasive, trailing frostbites from skin to skin.

 _Welcome home_.

Chuck wakes up with screams scratching at his throat. Sunlight jerks him away from the last syllables of horror and he stumbles from the bed, eyes ringed with residual shadows from a nightmare that he can’t quite remember. He sits at the edge of his writing desk, where the sun sweeps warm and reassuring. His hand shakes when he runs it through his hair.

“It’s just,” he says to the empty room. It hums a repertoire of silence in response. “Just a nightmare.”

Balloons crowd in his head. Balloons and _welcome home_ and someone who isn’t what he’s supposed to be (but much, much worse because _Chuck can’t remember_ ).

The basement remains locked for the rest of the year, men in dirty overalls coming and going in intervals. They cease their visits somewhere in June and Chuck imagines things rotting down there — newspapers dated years ago, old clothes in black trashbags and maybe. Something with fingers and a face and a smile. The doctor prescribes tiny white pills when he gets too scared to sleep and he ducks his head when his father’s face pulls into a tight mask of disapproval on the way to the pharmacy.

Chuck sinks into a darkness so complete he forgets how to dream.

They move to another city following his father’s promotion when he turns fifteen, into a house without a basement and voices travelling through unseen pipes. Chuck crunches his pills instead of swallowing them (he forgets why he’s taking them but he still does), between honour classes and hockey training and long walks with Max. He makes friends. He makes enemies more. His father teaches him a little about how to fix a carburetor and the animosity between them shifts.

Everything else fall into their own neat, little places.

(For a while.)

Sometime during summer, Tendo introduces a boy with the flourish of a grin.

And Chuck is too busy staring (trying to remember, _where have I seen you before_ ) to catch the name.

“— he’s moving into that old house at the end of your street, Hansen.”

There's something about a french word and Chuck can’t recall what it is. An overlap of memories; the present being mistaken for the past ( _deja vu,_ his mind points out belatedly). The boy, all gold and blue and so, so good looking, moves across their little semi circle like a visiting royalty. Shakes Bruce’s hand and grins at Mako, exchanges brief words with Trevor before he stops in front of Chuck.

“Hey. I’m Raleigh.”

Chuck raises an eyebrow, more out of habit than anything else. His face feels like a roll of plasticine punched into shape by a five year old. He doesn’t offer a hand in greeting. “Chuck.”

Tendo laughs at something in the background and the others join in after a few seconds, garbled words in between music from the speakers. They are loud enough that when the boy takes a step closer to Chuck, it goes unnoticed.

Raleigh tilts his head, eyes lighting-bright and startlingly sharp. “I know you.”

Chuck’s fingernails brand half-moons into his palms but he doesn’t look away. It’s irrational (bordering ridiculous) fear but he knows he would be eaten if he doesn’t keep his eyes on Raleigh.

“I’ve been searching for you.”

 _I’ve been waiting for you_.

Raleigh grins that familiar slanted, hitched grin. Chuck doesn’t stumble back only because he’s too terrified to move. “You'll remember. Soon.”

 

_Welcome home, Chuck._

 

_._

 


	3. the chuck hansen appreciation society

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chaleigh. it started off with this: "SEXUAL KINK: characters who start their run off being menacing dickbags but seasons later end up being the dorkiest characters on the show." 
> 
> and then these tags happened: #i can just imagine chuck being like this #an unrepentant asshole who survived pitfall #and had to learn how to live a normal life all over again #mostly failing in a spectacular fashion #there’s that one battle with the leafblower that everyone is forbidden to mention #EVER #and then people start secretly taking pictures of chuck failing at normal everyday things #the confused look on his face and subsequent pouting when he thinks no one’s looking #there’s a fanbase dedicated to CHUCK HANSEN: YOUR ADORABLE DORKIEST DORK #raleigh is the biggest anonymous contributor #followed by tendo #they even have merchandises okay #until one day chuck stumbles upon the site and EVERYTHING BLOWS UP #WHAT THE BLOODY HELL IS A TSUNDERE. MORI???? #I AM NOT FUCKING CUTE WHAT THE FUCK #WHAT’S- WHO DREW ME AS A KOALA??? WHO’S DOING THIS???? #herc just sighs a lot #and hides out in pentecost’s old office #and thinks wistfully of retiring

 

.

 

Raleigh looks up when he hears approaching footsteps and promptly shoves the photos he’d taken earlier that morning under his food tray, smoothing out his expression into something neutral as Chuck Hansen plops onto the bench across the table. Max barked at them in greeting, stumpy tail waggling happily and Mako leaned down to give him a well-deserved scratch. 

Raleigh nods when Chuck spares him a hostile-free glance and settles in place.

They’ve reached some kind of a truce post-Pitfall, an unspoken agreement that they would treat each other like respectable adults since they are the survivors of what should have been a kamikaze mission. It means watered-down assholery from Chuck (the  _Rahhleigh_ s and passive aggressive comments about Raleigh’s manhood are as present as ever and he’s come to accept that as part of Chuck’s charm) and well, Raleigh hasn’t done anything wrong so he’s mostly carrying on like he did pre-Pitfall. 

Aside from his newfound hobby, that is, but Chuck doesn’t need to know about that. 

“Is something wrong?” Mako asks after a second, poker face at full force. Raleigh envies her a little for that. “You look a bit… distracted.”

Chuck scowls, picks up a piece of sausage that he feeds to Max. There’s a smudge of grease just over his right cheekbone, another along the line of his jaw and Raleigh wonders if the kid’s still working on that old Mustang he keeps in Striker’s bay. “S’nothing. Just—”

Mako raises an eyebrow. 

Chuck’s face twists with embarrassment and he looks around, scratching his neck. It’s one of his tells, shows that he’s nervous about something (Raleigh notices stuff, okay, not that he’s stalking Chuck or anything) and his voice is considerably quieter when he says, “Do you think— people, y’know, been sorta _weird_ lately?”

Mako’s eyebrow hikes higher. 

“It’s just—” Chuck makes a frustrated noise at the back of his throat. “You remember that old Chinese doc down in med bay? Looks about a hundred and doesn’t wear pants?”

“Doctor Chen, you mean?”

“Yeah, him. Had to pick up some new pills just now and he called me…” Chuck trails off, eyes levelled on Raleigh. His mouth presses into a tight line, obviously debating whether or not Raleigh is worthy of listening to his woes. It takes him a few seconds to decide but he eventually whisper-shouts, “He fucking called me ‘baby koala’.”

Raleigh chokes on his potatoes. Loudly. 

Chuck’s glare could’ve melted a jaeger.

Mako very calmly pushes her glass of water towards Raleigh. “Maybe he likes you.”

“Maybe he’s fucking senile and should not be trusted to dispense drugs  _I don’t give a fuck_.” Chuck starts gesturing wildly and it’s clear that he’s been keeping his grievances to himself for as long as he can manage. Now that the dam’s broken, everything pours out unchecked. “What I’m sayin’ is that he’s not the only one. Someone’s been sending cookies to my bunk. It’s white chocolate and almond today, if you gotta know, and they’re fucking  _delicious._  I’ve also been mailed some manuals about leaf blowers for fuck knows why— _are you fucking laughing at me, Becket?_ ”

"No, of course not.” Raleigh is almost proud of the fact that his voice doesn’t crack. Much. “Sounds like you’ve got a lot of fans, man. You should appreciate them.”

Chuck flips him off and glowers. “This is a fucking conspiracy.”

Mako takes a dainty bite from her muffin. “I think the pills are making you paranoid.”

“It’s not the goddamn pills, Mori, and you know it.” There’s a maniacal gleam in his eyes that Raleigh doesn’t like when he continues, "I’m gonna find out who started this whole thing and then—"

Raleigh concentrates very hard on looking innocent. 

“—then, I’m gonna  _kill him_.”

It might just be his imagination (or guilty conscience) but it seems as if Chuck is looking straight at Raleigh when he delivers that ominous statement. 

Raleigh tries even harder at the whole looking innocent front.

 

.

 

"He’s going to kill you,” Mako states, calm as ever, as they watch Chuck swagger off after half an hour of increasingly graphic descriptions of murder. “When he finds out." 

Raleigh slants a look of utter betrayal at his partner, carefully slipping the photos of Chuck’s recent failure with the coffee machine in LOCCENT’s breakroom out from under his tray. They’re a bit scuffed at the edges, but otherwise unharmed. Raleigh stares fondly at the (now-immortalised in all its glossy glory) bewildered look on Chuck’s face when the machine had started spitting out smoke, thanking whatever deity looking out for retired jaeger pilots that he was lucky enough to catch this particular mishap in the making. 

Chuck looks goddamn adorable in his PJs too. Cute bastard.

He can almost imagine the furor over this new piece of update in the website’s forum and fuzzy warmth spreads inside the cavity of his chest. 

"We’ll just have to make sure he never does then,” Raleigh says with confidence borne out of a mix of optimism and the knowledge that he’s survived detonating a jaeger in an alien realm. He’s fucking  _invincible_ and some death threats aren’t going to stop him. He straightens, tucks the photos into his pocket. “If you’ll excuse me, Mako, I can’t keep my fellow enthusiasts waiting.”

Mako doesn’t roll her eyes but Raleigh can pretty much tell when she wants to. “Have fun.”

He grins. “Oh, I always do.”

 

.

 


	4. chuck's breaking up with the becket boys because they're dumb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chanceigh. the prompt is "oh gosh wow I am sort of flustered right now because chuck and raleigh and yancy all sweaty and bloody and beaten up". that's it. that's the prompt.

 

.

 

“You’re bleeding on my couch.”

“You have both Beckets to blame for that.” Chuck’s scowl turns into a grimace when Mako slaps his hand away, crouches down to inspect the cuts on his arm. He hisses when she pokes at them. “It's like their idiocy gets multiplied whenever they congregate." 

Raleigh limps out of the kitchen with an ice pack pressed against an ugly bump inches over his left eyebrow. "They called you a fag and then threatened to snap your violin into two.”

“I could’ve handled it on my own, mate!”

“Is that why you cried when that asshole punched you?" Raleigh sneers, less-than-gently tossing the ice pack at Chuck’s head. It connects with a wet ‘schlup’ and Mako pushes Chuck down when he attempts to lunge at Raleigh. "You’re welcome, Hansen. It's a good thing I'm very fond of your pretty ass.”  

Mako raises an eyebrow at Yancy, who's leisurely stretched out despite a black eye and several nasty-looking bruises on his face. “I thought you’re supposed to chaperone?”

Yancy flashes her a grin, the inner lining of his mouth stained red. He holds up a hand for a high-five as Raleigh plops down to join him on the floor. “They started it. Like I’m gonna let some punkass kids talk shit about my boyfriend.”

“Our boyfriend," Raleigh corrects, not for the first time and probably not the last. His elbow digs into Yancy’s side. ” _Ours_ _._ “

Chuck glowers. There are Hello Kitty bandages on his cheek, which makes him more cute than terrifying, and Mako’s sticking Pokemon ones on his arm. "Ex-boyfriend, you mean.”

Raleigh and Yancy mock-gasp in sync.

“You don’t mean that, Chuckles.”

“Pretty baby, you’re breaking my heart here.”

“ _DON’T CALL ME THAT._ ”

Mako sighs and pushes Chuck into the couch again.

 

.

 


	5. chuck hansen is very much like australia - a deadly trap

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chaleigh. the angela lives headcanon that veers out of control. her face claim is lena headey, just so you know.

 

.

 

“Morni—” Yancy trails off once he gets a good look at his brother, eyebrows raised in surprise. “The hell happened to your face?”

Raleigh drops onto the bench with a grimace that speaks of bruises underneath his shirt and pants. Probably to match the ones on his face. And his split lip. And that nasty cut above his left eyebrow, swollen and angry-red. ”I fell down the stairs.”

Yancy’s eyebrows hike higher. Raleigh steals one of his sausages and shoots him a look that pretty much says ‘ _leave it alone, man_ ’. Like it’s normal to walk into breakfast looking like he just wrestled a polar bear. Yancy’s about to point out that Beckets don’t fall down stairs or whatever else because that’s graceless and mortifying, and they’re fucking swans compared to those hulking Russians, but he’s cut short when, from the other side of the mess hall, he distinctly hears Herc’s grousing, “ _What the fuck did you do this time?_ ”. Followed by Chuck’s disgruntled, “ _Leave me alone, old man_ ”, and a slew of exchanges thick in Australian lingos. Which no one else can understand except for Striker’s crew. Yancy chances a glance over his shoulder, catches the state of Hansen Junior’s face and everything clicks inside his head.

Yancy sighs, turns and fixes Raleigh A Look. “Rals, I told you not to punch the kid.”

”Should’ve kept his mouth shut,” Raleigh mutters darkly through a mouthful of hash browns. “Talking shit ‘bout Gipsy. And Anchorage.”

 _Knifehead_ is left unspoken and understood. Chuck has an uncanny knack for pissing people off and he’s been butting heads with Raleigh since their first day in Hong Kong. Yancy suspects that nobody’s putting a stop to their pissing contest simply because there’s a rather sizable betting pool (managed by Tendo) on which one of the two hotheads would crack first and start swinging fists.

Yancy really hopes it’s Chuck. He’s got two hundred dollars riding on that.

He pushes his tray towards Raleigh. “Kid must be good. You’re gonna need an ice pack or two for those.”

Raleigh takes a few seconds to answer, absently tonguing at his split lip as he stares at something over Yancy’s shoulder. His eyes flash bright and dangerous, and Yancy is pretty sure he’s exchanging glares with Chuck all the way across the space in-between.

 _Jesus fucking Christ_.

“He got lucky." 

Yancy scoffs. “Lucky is one or two hit. You look like you got mauled by a bear, kiddo.”

Raleigh is still glaring and the atmosphere is so charged, some people have started to look around uneasily for the source of all the animosity in the air. He cracks his knuckles. “Won’t happen next time.”

"Yeah, okay. More importantly—” Yancy leans forward, directly into Raleigh’s line of vision and smiles when he’s subjected to a frown. “You gonna tell me who started the whole thing?”

 

.

 

“Morni—” Yancy’s greeting turns into a wince when he sees fresh bruises on Raleigh’s face, stark against the old ones he still carries from his last confrontation with the younger Hansen a couple of days ago. Especially the ones on his neck. “Let me guess. More stairs?”

“Nah.” There’s a lazy smirk plastered all over Raleigh’s face as he settles across the table, and Yancy narrows his eyes, suspicious. Raleigh looks way too smug for it to be just another fight with Chuck. “Worked out our differences.” He nods for emphasis and the smirk widens. Yancy’s getting slightly worried because _you didn’t kill the kid, right?_   “For good.”

He stares for a second. “… You didn’t kill the kid, right?”

Raleigh looks vaguely offended at that. “Fuck  _no_ , Yance. No way I’m letting anything happen to that gorgeous piece of ass.”

And with that, the answer dawns into the churning pit of Yancy’s stomach. “You fucked him, didn’t you.”

Raleigh’s fingers brush against the bruises (and upon closer inspection, _bite marks_ ) on his neck and his eyes have taken on the glazed look of someone reliving the best moments of their life. Yancy decides that he doesn’t want to know. “Got a mouth like a fucking remora, not even kidding.”

Really, _really_ doesn’t want to know.

“Slammed him to the wall once he started mouthing off this morning, y’know? Some shit about one of Gipsy’s techs. And _fuck_ , Yance, he just— just  _moaned._ Fucking moaned, I swear to God, just like the guy in that porn you liked.” Yancy wants to die. He wants to shove corn cobs into his ears and curl up into a ball but Raleigh, because he’s a shit little brother with zero sense of self preservation, barrels on. “Can’t say I’m surprised ‘cause it all makes perfect sense now. Picking fights and shit. Chuck got a hardon for me, it’s so obvious. Screams real pretty too. And I’m his first, can you fucking believe that? Took half a bottle of lube just to open him up—”

“ _Christ_. Stop talking. TMI, asshole. ” Raleigh only grins at his choice of word and Yancy rolls his eyes so hard he’s getting Knifehead flashbacks. It’s not that he’s grudging his brother a slice of happiness in their current bleak situation (what’s with Operation Pitfall and those fucking kaiju and Sasha hoarding all the good booze) but Raleigh has been known to be hazardous to his own well-being. Yancy’s just being a good big brother. “So… this is a one-time thing, yeah?”

Raleigh looks confused for a second, like the idea has never occurred to him. “Of course not.”

"You don’t even like Chuck.”

“I’ve never seen him naked before.”

Yancy narrows his eyes. “Whatever it is between you guys— it’s just physical?”

Another pause, and something indecipherable flashes in Raleigh’s eyes. His shoulders stiffen almost imperceptibly, red starting to creep over the base of his neck and Yancy only notices because he’s looking. “Yeah. Sure.”

_Physical, my ass._

“Right.” There’s no point trying to say anything about it now. Raleigh can be goddamned stubborn once he latches onto something and from the look of it, he’s dead-set on Chuck. Yancy takes a long swig of his lukewarm coffee and says, almost cheerfully, “Gonna have to give it to you, Rals. Didn’t know you’ve got the balls to sleep with Herc’s kid.”

Raleigh straightens in alarm, as if he just realises what (or rather,  _who_ ) he’s done.

“And it’s not even Herc you gotta worry about, really. Angela is Stack’s old friend, didn’t you know? Real terror back in the days. At least that’s what Tendo said. Heard they called her the ‘Angel of Death’.” Well, he might be embellishing a bit there but Yancy figures it’s worth it, since the look on Raleigh’s face has rapidly progressed from alarmed to completely horrified. He swallows the last of his scrambled eggs and grins. “But I’m sure she wouldn’t mind. You and her precious son being fuck buddies and all.”

“Uh—”

Someone chooses that moment to clear their throat behind Raleigh and he jerks so hard in surprise that he bumps his knees against the underside of the table, rattling their trays and upsetting his own cup of coffee. Yancy’s too busy doubling over with hysterical laughter to say anything to Chuck, who has a tray in one hand and Max’s leash in another, as he watches Raleigh curse and flail around like a torched orang utan.

“I’m… gonna go and eat over there,” Chuck says after a second, gesturing to a destination a considerable amount away from his current position. Probably after deciding that both the Beckets are bonkers. He hesitates and adds, with only a fraction of his usual ‘I’m-Hot-Shit’ swagger and a hint of a smile, “See you in the Kwoon later,  _Rah_ leigh.”

Raleigh turns red and does a painfully awkward half-wave, half-nod combo.

Yancy just starts laughing all over again.

 

.

 


	6. the barista au nobody asked for : part one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chaleigh. these tags go with the au: #also chuck is less prickly because angela's still alive #and there's no fucking kaiju fucking up everything in their lives

 

.

 

The day after he decides to officially pursue Chuck (otherwise known as Dimples the Barista in his head), Raleigh comes back with a newer sweater, a nicer pair of shoes and gel in his hair. He even manages to wake up early enough to get advice from Mako ( _just be your giant adorkable self_ , thanks Mako) and walks straight to the counter with rehearsed lines stashed at the back of his mind and pocket. Chuck looks up from a display of chocolate muffins ( _hand-made, freshly-baked $1.50 delights!_ ) and smirks.

And there you go. _Dimples_.

“It’s you.”

Raleigh leans an extra inch forward, pleased that Chuck would remember him. “Morning.”

“You’re early.” He wipes his hands on the apron. “We just opened." 

Raleigh doesn’t tell Chuck that he’d been hiding across the street fifteen minutes before Chuck arrived to open shop because that is considered to be creepy and slightly stalkerish in a world that doesn’t understand Raleigh Becket with a crush. Not that he would advertise it but yeah, what’s wrong with a little stalking in the name of love?

"Can you wait for a sec? Just need to make that guy’s coffee.”

“Sure,” Raleigh says as Chuck clatters around behind the counter. There’s a grace to the art, the confidence in which Chuck handles the coffee machine that Raleigh finds fascinating. And attractive. To be fair, he finds everything about Chuck attractive so that’s really nothing new. He admires the view as Chuck bends over to retrieve a new packet of milk. “Working alone today?”

Chuck sprinkles cocoa powder over the creamy whiteness of his concoction and places the mug onto a tray. He glances at Raleigh long enough to flash to shrug. “We’re a bit short-handed right now. One of the workers just left without notice so-”

Raleigh isn’t really thinking when he takes the tray from Chuck’s hand. “Let me be your helper monkey for today.”

“Mate, I don’t-”

“You make the coffee, I’ll do everything else. Can’t be that hard.” Raleigh adds a wink and the smirk that Yancy calls his ‘porn smirk’. Yancy’s just jealous because Tendo isn’t as pretty as Chuck. “Deal?”

There’s a hint of red on Chuck’s cheeks when he fumbles for an answer and Raleigh think it’s cute. Adorable, even. His accent gets thicker when he says, “Ya don’t need t'do this.”

“I don’t have any classes today. Besides,” Raleigh balances the tray and look at Chuck in the eyes. Straight into those impossibly green eyes. “I’m actually here to see you. Helping you out is a bonus, yes?”

Raleigh walks away before Chuck can say anything because hell yeah, he’s a smooth operator with a killer line and a grand (not quite) exit. The customer doesn’t seem too pleased that his coffee is late but Raleigh doesn’t really care because he’s got this in the bag. He catches Chuck’s eyes from across the cafe and grins when Chuck rolls his eyes, that blush making his freckles stand out like fireflies.

Raleigh nearly trip into one of the tables because he’s too busy staring at Chuck to notice where he’s going.

Which gets him a good hard laugh from the barista so he counts that as a victory. 

 

.

 


	7. the barista au nobody asked for : part two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chaleigh. more barista!au.

 

.

 

There’s a nice counter at the back of the cafe that Raleigh really, really likes.

Not where Chuck spends mornings making croissants and muffins and all those crazy-delicious treats he serves to the adoring public because that’s just unsanitary (Chuck’s words because to be honest, Raleigh would do him just about anywhere). So Raleigh finds a counter that gets the okay to be used for unsanitary activities and develops a habit of spreading Chuck all over the chrome-shiny surface whenever he drops by in between classes.

Fumbling with Chuck’s apron, distracted by fingers digging into his back and Chuck’s legs around his waist. They kiss and laugh and slip their hands underneath each other’s shirts, seeking more warm skin and ratcheting heartbeats. Chuck loops an arm around Raleigh’s neck, drags him in until they’re both speaking in a language of lips and tongues. Raleigh tastes mint and something spicy at the back of Chuck’s mouth and he withdraws for a gasp of air, rubs a thumb over Chuck’s kiss-bruised lips.

He thinks he’s grinning like an idiot but he has a handful of gorgeous so who the hell cares. “Shit. You taste even better than your fruit tarts.”

Chuck’s grin echoes Raleigh’s, cheeks flushed and green eyes lit up with mischief behind gold-tipped lashes. “Huge compliment, being compared to my own pastries.”

“Hey! They’re my favourite okay!”

“You’re such a sweet-talker.” Chuck leans forward to steal another kiss before he removes Raleigh’s hands, soothing the disgruntled noises Raleigh made with tiny kisses. His break is about to be over and they’re going to need him to man the cashier when the lunch crowd hits. Raleigh suspects that it has something to do with using Chuck’s dimples to con unsuspecting cafe goers out of their hard-earned money. “I can send some fruit tarts over to you later? Shouldn’t be that different from having me around.”

Raleigh, in retaliation, digs his fingers into that groove just above Chuck’s hip that makes him swears in surprise and tries to squirm away as Raleigh latches on even tighter.

Because Chuck is ridiculously ticklish and that’s something Raleigh will never not use as a weapon against Chuck’s insistence in making fun of him at every possible turn.

 

.

 


	8. the barista au nobody asked for : part three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chaleigh. the barista!au - a trilogy.

 

.

 

“You called me ‘Dimples’?” Chuck hits the pause button on their latest Call of Duty campaign, twisting in the vee of Raleigh’s legs to stare at him. “ _S_ _eriously_?”

Raleigh sputters as Yancy laughs so hard, the asshole falls off the couch. Tendo makes quiet, muffled noises from the other end because he has a functioning survival instinct and Raleigh really, really needs to start unearthing all of Yancy’s embarrassing middle-school pictures. 

Or get a new big brother pronto. 

He settles on pouting. “I didn’t know your name then.”

“So you decided that 'Dimples’ is an acceptable replacement?”

“I love your dimples,” Raleigh mutters, pokes at one of those dimples when Chuck grins up at him. It’s unfair how gorgeous his boyfriend is because now he can’t even sulk properly. His life is  _tragic_. Somewhere on the floor, Yancy is still laughing. “C'mon. Spill. What did you call me?”

Chuck holds up a hand and starts ticking. “Seppo. Drongo. Dumba—”

“He referred to you as 'That Asshole With The Smile’.” Mako emerges from the kitchen with a bowl of popcorn and a grin. “And occasionally 'Sex God’.”

“ _Mako_ ,” Chuck hisses, in the tone of voice that implies carefully-planned vengeance and a lot of unnecessary violence in their weekly sparring to come. But he’s blushing right up to his roots and Raleigh’s jaw is maybe completely unhinged as he stares at Chuck. Who swats his arm with an irritated huff. “Don’t listen to her. She’s a pathological liar. She has _issues._ " 

Raleigh ignores Chuck in favour of sidling closer to Mako. He gets another swat on the arm for that, harder and with the obvious intent to bruise. ” _Sex God?_ “

She shrugs. "You walk around naked a lot in the changing room.”

“I’m going to kill you,” Chuck says but his words are slightly muffled since he’s taken to burying his face into his arms. The flush that’s creeping up the back of his neck makes his freckles stand out like tiny constellations and Raleigh swallows the sudden urge to put his mouth all over Chuck. He reaches out to but stops short when Chuck elbows him. Right in the left kidney. _Ow._  "I’m going to kill all of you.“ 

"Even your Sex God, _Dimples_?”

Yancy and Tendo burst out in fresh laughter, while Mako’s chuckles can still be heard from behind the hand over her mouth.

Chuck slumps back in defeat. Raleigh kisses the back of his neck. He slumps even further, nuzzling into Raleigh’s thigh. “Especially you. I hate you so much.”

 

.

 


	9. you're the first of my lasts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chaleigh. post-operation pitfall fluff. chuck lives, ofc.

 

.

 

Being with Raleigh introduced Chuck to a lot of ‘firsts’ in his life.

He had been too preoccupied with the war. Hardwired to be a perfectionist and everything else in life took a back seat at the face of an impending apocalypse. Striker Eureka was his first priority and he wore his drivesuit like a second skin — the inside of a Conn-Pod was the only world he had ever known. But when they no longer faced the threat of annihilation in the form of giant sea monsters from another universe, Chuck learnt that he needed all the time he now had to catch up on everything he had missed.

And Raleigh was there to walk him through them. 

First midnight picnic in the park, where Raleigh told stories about constellations and their mythical counterparts as they picked at the odd assortment of food Mako had packed (they steered clear of Newt’s sandwiches, just in case). First movie marathon (Disney’s, because Raleigh found it appalling that Chuck never watched a single one) and Chuck spent its entirety trying not to cry (and failing and then ended up using Raleigh as a punching bag) because  _goddamnit, nobody told him Bambi’s mother died, what the fuck_. First grocery shopping trip (that ended in absolute disaster). First roadtrip across the States, and subsequently, the first time Chuck found out that he disliked spiders. Intensely and loudly. Also the first time he broke up with Raleigh because the bastard fucking laughed at his freakout.

They made up in a spider-free hotel.  _  
_

Raleigh wasn’t his first kiss, not by a long shot, but Raleigh was his first kiss in the rain, in the morning-after, after a nightmare of not returning from the Breach. Raleigh wasn’t his first fuck either but to Chuck, theirs was the one that counted. 

“Chuck?” There were hands on his waist, caressing in broad strokes and his eyes fluttered open. He followed the lines of corded muscles, lingering at the circuit burns on one shoulder before he found himself peering at Raleigh’s face. Who had an eyebrow raised when he said, “Hey, space cadet. You back with me?”

“Yeah,” he murmured, rubbing at his eyes. “M'just sleepy.”

Raleigh laughed. His eyes were warm, lips warmer when they pressed against Chuck’s. “C'mon. Let’s get you to bed.”

 _And really_ , Chuck thought, closed his eyes as he allowed Raleigh to herd him to their bunk. _Who needs anything more than this?_

 

_._

 


	10. the high school au nobody asked for : part one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chaleigh. chuck does classical music and raleigh plays football. they meet halfway, somehow.

 

.

 

It’s three am and Raleigh sits outside the music room; halfway asleep, halfway in love and maybe all the way crazy. The door is cold against his back and he forgets his sweater on the way out, unfortunately dressed in a threadbare shirt and worn jeans.  
  
He bites his lip when his phone beeps. He probably should’ve put that on silent.  
  
_where are you_.  
  
_guess_ , Raleigh types back with half-frozen fingers. and adds  _:)_  as an afterthought.  
  
It’s five seconds later that he hears a soft knock, the rattle of the door and subsequent beep to signal another text message.  
  
_stalker_.  
  
_am not_. Raleigh tucks his chin between drawn knees and smiles into the scratchy fabric of his jeans.  _we’re gonna get caught_.  
  
There’s stifled laughter somewhere behind him.  _i’m good at running_.  
  
_no you're not. pretty sure my grandma runs faster than you_.  
  
The door slides open behind him and when Raleigh looks up, he sees Chuck’s face. A halo of muted light over tousled hair and he looks softer, made of gentler slopes. “At least I can outrun you.”  
  
“You wish,” Raleigh says since he doesn’t really know what else to say.  
  
Chuck closes the door and sits beside him, squeezed between doorframes. It’s awkward and uncomfortable. It’s perfect. “What’re you doing here?”  
  
Raleigh huffs. “Mako told me where you are. She sent me over to make sure that you don’t get caught.”

“I need to practice,” Chuck confides into the silence, slow and languid secrets. Raleigh knows Chuck hates admitting to a weakness. “It doesn’t sound quite right yet but—” he shrugs and ducks his face. 

Raleigh reads between the lines. “Let me hear it.”  
  
Chuck’s smile is self-deprecation and gratitude, something so far removed from the arrogance he carries in daylight and Raleigh’s heart aches for something _more_. When Chuck parts his lips, the first note a whisper against Raleigh’s cheek, he closes his eyes and dreams about a world where he’s allowed to touch back.

 

.

 


	11. the high school au nobody asked for : part two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chaleigh. more hs!au where chuck plays an instrument and raleigh plays jock bodyguard and they pretend they're not in love with each other because dumb boys are dumb.

 

,

 

“What’s up.”  
  
Raleigh looks up from the book he has propped open between spread legs, something thick with tiny print. He’s wearing a band t-shirt, one that Chuck has never heard of and his jeans are veering dangerously into this side of too-tight. “You’re late.”  
  
“You didn’t have to wait,” Chuck grumbles, averts his eyes and drops his backpack. The grass is damp, but he sits next to Raleigh anyway, careful so that their shoulders are inches apart. “So _._ ”  
  
Raleigh raises an eyebrow. “So?”  
  
“You texted and told me to come. I came. _So_?”  
  
“You’re obedient, _Hansen_. Didn't expect that.” Raleigh laughs and Chuck stiffens mid-scowl when a hand rests on his thigh. “But hey, do you know someone called ‘Trevin’?”  
  
“Why? Did you piss anyone off lately?”  
  
“I don’t know.” Raleigh’s voice flits between blades of grass and Chuck blinks, itches to remove the hand. “Tendo said someone been asking around about me.”  
  
“Well, if they find your body in a dark alley, I promise I’ll cry at your funeral.”  
  
Raleigh pouts and jabs a finger into the crook of Chuck’s ribs, breaching those few inches Chuck has painstakingly put between them. Up close, his eyes are electric blue, framed by gold-tipped lashes and the kind of spark that makes Chuck thinks irrational thoughts. Like _I could kiss you, just like this_  and _you smell like pancakes_ and  _I love you, idiot_.   

He swallows thickly, could’ve sworn that Raleigh’s eyes darken in that half-second, drops to the exposed column of his neck but the moment is too fleeting for him to be sure.

Raleigh prods at him again. “I’m gonna come back and haunt your bathroom.”  
  
“Creep.” Chuck jerks away, flicks bits of dirt at Raleigh’s hair. He still has trouble breathing right but what little space between them gives him leverage. “Always knew you’re a fucking pervert, Becket.”  
  
“Yeah. But,” Raleigh’s smile is sunshine warm when he continues, “you still love me, right?”  
  
Chuck translates the stutters in his heart into an eyeroll, swallows down the words clamouring at the back of his throat because Chuck has a lifetime of practice in denying what he feels. A few more years wouldn’t have made any difference, especially when Raleigh could’ve had anyone who isn’t Chuck. Who’s better than Chuck in all the ways that count.

They spend seconds in the quiet lull, Raleigh’s palm pressing down printed words and head tilted back to stare at Chuck with a mix of expectation and something unidentifiable (but gentle, always gentle). Chuck looks away and clears his throat, starts humming a half-remembered melody into the inches between them, the stretch of soft notes strung up into whispers.

Raleigh watches him with those electric blue eyes, quiet and unwavering.

 

.

 


	12. the high school au nobody asked for : part three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chaleigh. this hs!au has a life of its own.

 

.

 

It’s three in the morning and the studio hums with a slow ballad, the deliberate twine of violin and piano weaving in between mirrors and polished floor. Chuck carefully positions his hands, checks his posture because this is not his usual fare. He feels awkward and inadequate all over again, and he closes his eyes to concentrate on swaying to the music.

Step. Step. Turn. Step. Twirl.

Until the door clicks open and Chuck finds his hands pressed against warm skin instead of empty air. He doesn’t miss a step and they move in unison.

Step. Turn. Step. Step. Turn.

“Why are you suddenly interested in waltz?”

Chuck smiles, self-deprecating, into the darkness. “I have to.”

“Why?”

All the questions. “My dad’s dragging me to a military soiree this weekend. I’m supposed to dance with a lot of old ladies or something.”

Raleigh laughs. “Now I’m officially jealous.”

“You can have all the old ladies you want, mate.”

“It’s not them I want,” Raleigh says, amusement bleeding from his voice. His grip on Chuck’s hand tightens for a second. 

There’s a strange brand of courage coursing through his veins, amplified by the cover of liquid darkness and Chuck says, “One thing’s good about it though.”

Raleigh takes a step forward and he steps back, in tandem. “Oh?”

“Never knew you could dance. Always thought you’re more into twerking or however they call that shit.” His hands rest on the angles he’s come to know better than his own name as Raleigh laughs hard and loud. He counts their synchronised steps, perfectly aligned with the music. Waltz is slow, beautifully-languid and Chuck wants to avoid crashing at breakneck speed as long as he can. Because he knows he is not made for love stories and he’s just a stand-in, until Raleigh finds someone better. That courage is intoxicating and he adds, “Let’s stay like this forever.”

Laughter echoes along the slides of their bare feet, the thrum of electricity in the air. Chuck keeps his eyes closed even when soft lips murmurs softer words into the curl of his mouth. He thinks this is a dream, of course it’s a dream but he will remember the taste of Raleigh’s smile. The way Raleigh wraps an arm around his back, pressing them into one single heartbeat. 

“Thought you’d never ask.”

 

.

 


	13. the high school au nobody asked for : part four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chaleigh. hs!au. doubts need to be addressed just right.

 

.

 

When Raleigh wakes up, the other side of the bed is empty. Crumpled blankets and a haphazard pile of pillows and nothing else. He reaches out, smooths a hand over gaping space and sighs at the trace of residual warmth under his fingertips. The clock reads six fifteen in blinking red digits and his parents wouldn’t be home until noon. 

Raleigh finds Chuck in the kitchen.

“I hope you made hot chocolate.”

“Coffee.” Chuck is leaning against the counter, hair sticking up everywhere and eyes smudged with shadows, with something deep and troubled. His grin cuts a jagged line of lips and teeth across his face and Raleigh worries. “With marshmallows.”

Raleigh catches a glimpse of sharp collarbones, freckled skin bruised red and purple as he gropes around the cupboard for a chocolate mix but Chuck is too busy staring at something that isn’t Raleigh to notice. He reaches out and thumbs at Chuck’s lower lip. “What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing.”

Raleigh stares at the smooth lines of Chuck’s neck and waits. 

“I just.” A short, irritated noise bubbles from the back of his throat. “I don’t understand." 

"What don’t you understand?”

Chuck exhales, runs a hand to further tousle his hair and he turns to look at Raleigh. “You. I don’t understand you.”

“You can always ask,” Raleigh says after a second. There’s a cold niche inside his heart that thinks Chuck is talking about regret, about _I think this is a mistake_ and  _can we just be friends_. 

The milks simmers in the background and Chuck drops another marshmallow into his mug. Raleigh pulls Chuck closer, fingers digging into old t-shirt and warm skin. He glances into the mug and sees more marshmallows than liquid. “Why are you still here? Right now?”

“I couldn’t find my jeans. And I haven’t had breakfast.”

Chuck elbows him, brows creasing into a scowl. He looks seconds away from dumping the content of his mug into Raleigh’s boxer, third degree burn to delicate areas be damned and Raleigh rests his cheek on Chuck’s shoulder. Keeps his arms a loose circle around Chuck’s waist, anchoring the brewing storm. “Because I want to. Because I want _you_.”

He feels Chuck stiffen, and he presses a kiss into the juncture between Chuck’s neck and his shoulder. Raleigh laughs when Chuck shudders. “I’ve wanted you for the longest time.”

“Yeah?” Chuck takes a sip of marshmallow — his voice is steady, but not his hand. Raleigh keeps an eye on the milk, pretty sure he’s burnt it by now and tightens his arms around Chuck. “Hey, Rals.”

“Hm?”

Chuck looks at Raleigh and his smile is tender, fragile. Too young underneath that painted bravado and plastic charms. “I’ve wanted you to.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” Raleigh kisses the corner of Chuck’s mouth. Coffee-bitter and marshmallow-sweet. “Okay.”

 

.

 


	14. the high school au nobody asked for : part five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chaleigh. hs!au. and then it gets a little sad before it gets a little better.

 

.

 

“What are we doing?”

Chuck grabs Raleigh’s hand and splays it palm up, music sheets crumpling unhappily underneath the awkward angles of their elbows. The tip of his pen is poised above the upturned wrist, over the network of veins and dim light softens the sharp edges of Chuck’s eyes when they catch his. As if Raleigh is a piece of music he cannot read, in another language altogether. 

Raleigh thinks Chuck likes complications. Questions unasked and unanswered, heartbreaks at the end of every verse. 

Raleigh thinks Chuck likes tragedies because he doesn’t quite know how to let himself be happy.

There is a song in the background, mellow and lilting and this could’ve been a love story written in vignettes. Could’ve been a lot of things and Raleigh leans back to watch Chuck’s eyelashes paint shadows over his cheeks. 

“Does it matter?” 

Raleigh bites back a surprised hiss when ballpoint and ink traced characters onto his skin, quick strokes travelling the length of his arm. He cranes his neck for a better look and they are lines and music notes he doesn’t understand, words in Latin that could’ve meant anything. Chuck has a look of concentration on his face, hair spilling over his eyes and his grip burns fingerprints onto the ridges of Raleigh’s wrist. 

“You’re going away, aren’t you.” Chuck pauses and dots his _i_ ’s patiently. “I heard.” 

Raleigh wants to say ’ _I won’t if you tell me to stay, just tell to stay, please_ ’ but Chuck blows warm, warm air over the last few lines on his fingertips and Raleigh is suddenly too busy shivering to stutter out his argument. They sit with their ankles and knees tangled together, blankets flung aside in the distance between their bodies and Raleigh’s bed feels like a universe of its own. Chuck spares a few seconds to collect his scattered music sheets, places them onto the bedside table for safekeeping. 

He looks at Raleigh, lips pressed into one thin, stubborn line. 

“I’m not gonna say goodbye.”

There’s a discreet click and the music track shifts, careening into a cacophony of drums and electric guitars and screamings.

Raleigh reaches out, music running the length of his arm, and pulls Chuck into a kiss.

 

.

 


	15. misunderstandings are the flavours of life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pre-chaleigh. chuck's telling mako to hold back his little girlfriend instead.

 

.

 

“That was unnecessary.”

Raleigh stares at the slip of Japanese girl seated next to him. “What?”

“Chuck,” she says. Her expression is carefully neutral and she looks at him from underneath soot-black lashes, curls of blue against her cheeks. Her dinner remains untouched. “I have no use for his apologies.”

Raleigh scoffs. “He insulted you.”

A small smile touches Mako’s lips and she shakes her head. “You are mistaken.”

“What are you—”

"The insult was not meant for me.”

The expectant look on Mako’s face makes him frown. His mind digs up a memory of Chuck’s face, twisted into a sneer and mouth spitting words that cut like barbwires; ‘ _you just hold back your little girlfriend_ —

_hold back your little girlfriend_

_little girlfriend_

Raleigh’s frown darkens. “He was talking _to_ you, wasn’t he. Not _about_ you.”

“We grew up together,” Mako says, as if that explains everything. She then nods at him, eyes twinkling with secrets, and adds, “Chuck always does have a funny way of demonstrating affection.”

Raleigh chokes on a mouthful of mashed potato.

 

.

 


	16. all the silences inside your pretty mouth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chancy. chuck loses his voice. yancy makes poor life decisions. the hospital is a terrible place for romance.

 

.

 

The hospital room is bleached white white _white_ everywhere, the tangible smell of antiseptic in the air and soft murmurs of jargon too technical to be understood. Chuck listens when he isn’t sleeping and he picks up some of the nurses’ names, even a doctor or two. They come to him at designated hours, clockwork in their precision and he finds ways to say thanks without actually saying it.

They say his voice will return. They’ve been saying that for thirty days now and he fingerspells ‘ _thank you_ ’ to the nurse who speaks in accented English ( _Mako_ , his mind supplies).  
  
“Your vocal cords are healed but—”  
  
There’s a scar right around his neck. Like a necklace, but isn’t as pretty.   
  
“Maybe if you try harder—”  
  
He doesn’t tell them that he’s getting very proficient at Morse. He’s an Army brat and the old man who occupies the bed next to him is a vet, humours him by demonstrating increasingly complex codes in between checkups and a shared knowledge of a mutual secret.

His father calls long-distance every few days, rushing from one military base to the next, and their conversations are made up entirely of clicks.   
  
“From the early diagnose, we can’t tell—”  
  
The old man goes for a surgery one day but doesn’t return. Chuck taps  _thank you_  and  _goodbye_  and some time past midnight, he hears vague taps in response. He stays curled underneath his blanket until it’s morning and someone moves into the empty bed.  
  
Chuck greets Yancy with a quiet grin amidst the noisy downpour outside.  
  
Yancy suffers from a broken leg, metal pins jutting out in concise grid and he confesses (laughingly) to Chuck that it’s because he'd jumped off the second-floor balcony while he was drunk. Chuck sniggers soundlessly and makes rude hand gestures that basically says ’ _you’re an idiot_ ’. Yancy takes it in strides and asks one of the nurses for markers and a sketch pad because he doesn’t know enough ASL to keep a conversation going.  
  
_chuck_ is the first thing Yancy learns. Chuck learns more because he doesn’t speak, only listen and he listens for hours. He listens until his mind is too full of Yancy’s voice and he hears him even when he’s asleep. He wonders if there’s something wrong with that, if there’s something wrong with _him_  but Yancy distracts him soon enough. Sometimes with a crude joke, sometimes a careless grin over something written into their communal sketch pad.

Chuck wheels Yancy around when it doesn’t rain, or when Yancy isn’t napping (Chuck writes ’ _narcoleptic old man_ ’ and gets a noogie out of that one). He points out his favourite tree, that rose bush just behind the morgue and the boy who has cancer, who lives alone in a room on the third floor. Yancy’s (little not so little) brother comes to visit every other day, with enough laughter and noise to fill the empty space in between. Yancy talks and is talked to, and Chuck spends those day in the library in stifling silence because he can’t stand Raleigh’s chatter. He reads books about love lost and found and learns that one needs a voice to say  _I love you_.  
  
Chuck has a collection of markers in different colours and a spiralbound of white papers.  
  
He wonders if it’s enough.   
  
They pull the pins out of Yancy’s leg and he graduates to a crutch, hobbling around the room enthusiastically. He begins talking about being discharged, about ice hockey and practices and the rapturous sound of cheering at the end of each game. Chuck nods even if he doesn’t understand, fingers his necklace that isn’t a necklace and thinks of surfboards and stretch of golden sand for the first time in over a month.  
  
Forty two days and Chuck tries to say  _don’t go_  when Yancy packs his bag.   
  
“I’ll be back.”  
  
_no, you won’t._  
  
“I promise.”  
  
_liar._  
  
Chuck rips up the papers, stains his fingernails with fluorescent colours that say nothing that matters. 

 

.

 


	17. keep your hands off the merchandise (unless you're buying)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chaleigh. the case of ‘get your hands out of ranger hansen jr’s pants please, ranger becket. jfc, guys. have some decorum.’

 

.

 

The first time they got caught, it was not Raleigh’s fault.

Well. Not  _entirely_ his fault. Chuck had come to him early that morning, full-on Australian swagger and an invitation for a spar that looked more like a challenge than anything else. Raleigh accepted because he’d been itching for a reason to kick Chuck’s ass, second round of their hallway brawl and he showed up in the Kwoon a little past eight. Chuck was already there, black wifebeater to match Raleigh’s white and they went at it with all the tenderness of wolves fighting for territory.

In the midst of trying to beat the stuffing out of each other, workout somehow turned into make-out and frantic grappling to get their clothes off. _That_ was Chuck’s fault— he had no business bucking up into Raleigh’s crotch, face flushed and panting from exertion and Raleigh couldn’t be blamed for his body’s instinctive response. Which was to ground down and grab a handful of Chuck’s ass.

He got hard blindingly, embarrassingly fast. 

Chuck’s gasping and whimpering and groaning were high quality porn right there, and Raleigh obliged (happily, if the state of his dick was of any indication) by pressing down and scraping his fingers along the sides of Chuck’s heaving chest. Rucked up that wifebeater to expose sweat-slick skin. He bit into Chuck’s lower lip, grinned savagely when Chuck dug blunt nails into his shoulders and it took him less than fifteen seconds to work his hand through the waistband of—

Someone cleared their throat.

Both of them stilled. Standing at the Kwoon’s entrance were the Wei triplets, wearing matching shit-eating grins as they raised their eyebrows.

In perfect sync.

 

.

 

Chuck refused to talk to him.

It was sort of cute, the way Chuck’s neck turned red before he practically sprinted off whenever Raleigh came within ten metres radius. This happened often enough that Herc had taken to staring after his son’s retreating back with a mix of exasperation and confusion, and nodded at Raleigh as he joined the older pilot for lunch. Raleigh’s eyes followed the curve of Chuck’s ass until it disappeared behind a gaggle of technicians. A shame, since Raleigh admitted that Chuck had a pretty monumental ass, now that he’d had first-hand knowledge of it.

“Dunno what’s wrong with the kid now,” Herc said, frowning and stabbing indiscriminately at roasted potatoes with his fork. “Been actin’ strange since mornin’.”

Raleigh made appropriate vague noises, welcomed Mako’s appearance with a touch more enthusiasm than necessary (that earned him a suspicious side-eye from the tiny Japanese girl) and he waited until everyone was preoccupied with something else before he went searching for his errant prey.

He found Chuck in Striker Eureka’s hangar. Above it, to be more precise. Max was snoring away in a wrinkled bundle of dog and Chuck was staring absently at Striker’s Conn-Pod, the line of spine razor-sharp and he stiffened even further once he realised Raleigh was there. Raleigh could see him eyeing the exit and he moved to intercept Chuck's possible escape.

“Wait.”

Chuck hesitated. His neck turned an even darker shade of red, the colour creeping towards his cheeks. “What do you want?”

Raleigh took a step forward, and another when Chuck didn’t look like he would fled like a startled deer. He stopped within arm’s reach. “We need to talk. About this morning.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Chuck—”

“Shut up.”

“Listen, I don’t want to fight—”

“Sod off.”

Raleigh sighed. And then decided to skip conversation altogether (since Chuck was being an uncooperative little shit) and moved onto more pleasurable, decidedly physical pursuit. He surged forward and felt a flare of satisfaction when Chuck noticed his intention a half-second too late, eyes widening in alarm. Raleigh pushed until they’re pressed flush against each other, crowding the younger man into one of the steel bars that kept the walkway suspended. 

If Chuck had said ’ _no_ ’, anything that wasn’t consent, Raleigh would’ve backed off in a heartbeat. But Chuck didn’t even try to resist — he simply stared at Raleigh from underneath gold-tipped eyelashes and flushed even harder.

Which pretty much read ‘TAKE ME NOW’ in Raleigh-Speak. 

His fingers dipped lower, following that sweet, sweet curve of warm skin and the promise of more. Chuck’s breath hitched and he nuzzled closer, rasped sweet nothings that descended into a litany of increasingly graphic depiction of what he would do to Chuck _._

“ _Becket_.”

Fuck.

Raleigh craned his neck, mouth curling into a wobbly grin as his eyes latched onto Herc Hansen’s imposing figure. Who stood at the far end of the metal contraption and looked five seconds away from throwing him bodily off the walkway. After breaking a bone or two or maybe fifteen. “Sir, I can explain—”

Chuck muttered a curse into Raleigh’s shoulder.

 

.

 


	18. take all you're offered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chaleigh. there was a conversation on tumblr and it basically came to this: "and then raleigh unknowingly snubs him in some way and kid!chuck is all hurt and angry about it which is partly why later on he’s such a jerk ‘i’m a better pilot than you now asshole’ but then he’s like ‘wait you are also really hot?’"

 

.

 

Raleigh spots the kid first because Yancy’s too busy trying to stay awake long enough for their debriefing with Pentecost, who tells them to wait until he’s done smoothing over some obscure technical concerns about Horizon Brave with their lead engineers. The mess hall has emptied out earlier, technicians and various crew members called to the hangar for mandatory jaeger maintenance, and it’s really easy to pick out an anomaly when there’s nothing else to distract Raleigh’s attention.

The kid in question looks no older than fourteen, awkward and gangly and accompanied by a puppy at the end of a leash. He’s been half-hiding behind the vending machine for a good ten minutes by the time Raleigh notices, darting nervous looks at them when he thinks no one’s looking. Raleigh knows a fan when he sees one, has his fair share of groupies trying to get an autograph, a hug, any piece of him that they can get their hands on. He wonders how the kid manages to sneak through security, especially with that wrinkly mutt drooling over everything.

The guys up front must be getting sloppy on the job.    

Raleigh shoves at his brother, who has been nodding off for a few minutes, and snickers when Yancy snaps into attention with a half-shrieked, “I swear I’m awake, Marshall!”

“At ease, ranger,” Raleigh teases, ducks underneath the half-hearted punch aimed at his face. He points the general direction of their shy admirer and grins when Yancy catches on. “Look what I found.”

Yancy huffs a laugh, straightening up and rolling his shoulders back. Raleigh knows that look; it’s Yancy’s ‘I’m A Rockstar Jaeger Pilot’ guise he uses to hide the fact that he’s a narcoleptic old geezer. “Guess we should do him a favour and call him over before he gets a nervous breakdown or something.”

Raleigh shrugs. Yancy’s the one who likes to talk to everyone, ask questions like ’ _where are you from_ ’ and ’ _how are you holding up_ ’ and ’ _what can we do for you_ ’. Yancy and his bleeding heart, whereas Raleigh’s content with the knowledge that they’re doing what they do best in Gipsy, that they’re at the top of their game and the kaiju are nothing more than notches and celebratory champagne at the end of the day. Sure, he basks in the attention during interviews and press conferences — gratitude is always nice after saving millions of lives, but that’s about it. 

He doesn’t really waste any more time than necessary on the adoring public, too busy being the crème de la crème.

“Oi, kid!” Yancy hollers and the boy jerks in alarm, eyes wide like a deer caught in the headlight. He looks even younger like that, flushes harder when his puppy barks in return. Yancy’s grin widens. “C'mon. We don’t bite.”

There’s a split second of hesitance before the boy skirts around the vending machine, tugging at the leash as the puppy waddles happily at his side. He stumbles over a bench on his way over, does it a few times actually and Raleigh, despite earlier misgiving, finds the whole thing ridiculously adorable. He stops about a foot away and inches closer at Yancy’s prompt.

“Hey,” Yancy says. He holds out a hand and the boy eyes it for a few seconds, before he grasps the offered hand and gives it a perfunctory shake. “What’s your name?”

“Chu—” He swallows and ducks his head, embarrassed. His cheeks flare even redder. “I’m Charles.” 

“Nice to meet you, Charles. I’m Yancy and this—” he nudges Raleigh’s shoulder. “—is Raleigh.”

“Yeah, I know. You’re Gipsy Danger’s pilots.” His eyes dart from Yancy to Raleigh, doesn’t even try to hide the extent of his awe and admiration as he fumbles with a rolled up poster. “Could you— do you mind—”

Yancy laughs and takes the poster, unrolling it to reveal the newest rendition of Gipsy towering over a fallen kaiju. It’s one from the collector’s edition, costs quite a pretty penny if he remembers right. Yancy picks up the Sharpie that comes with it. “What are you doing here, kiddo?" 

"I’m gonna be a pilot!” Charles blurts out with a wide smile and _goodness gracious_ , the kid has dimples the size of lunar craters. “Just like you guys!”

Raleigh scoffs. “You’re a bit too small for the Conn-Pod, don’t you think?”

Yancy shoots him a warning glare, something that reads ’ _Rals, I love you to death but you’re a fucking idiot so shut up right now_ ' but the damage is already done. Charles looks thunderstruck for a second, before his expression shutters into one of utter heartbreak and he tugs free Gipsy’s poster from Yancy’s fingers without another word, eyes carefully averted to the floor. There’s only Yancy’s barely legible scrawl over its glossy surface because Raleigh hasn’t gotten the chance to sign it and it looks depressingly incomplete. 

Yancy reaches out to place a hand on Charles’ shoulder in an attempt to cajole. “Look, Raleigh’s just—”

Charles shrugs the hand off, picks up his puppy and mutters a quick ’ _thanks, Mr Becket_ ’, before literally sprinting towards the general direction of the jaeger hangar.

Raleigh figures he deserves it when Yancy slaps him at the back of his head.

He’s about to head off to try and find the kid —  _Charles_ , that’s his name — and apologise, maybe give him a pointer or two on what he should expect if he’s enrolling into the Jaeger Academy but his intention is cut short by Pentecost, who finally summons them for the debriefing through the intercom.

Talk about shitty timing. 

Raleigh turns to Yancy and shrugs helplessly. “I’ll find him after, yeah?”

“You better.”

 

.

 

They get shipped off to Anchorage post-haste and Raleigh finds himself at the brunt of Yancy’s glare throughout the journey.

 

.

 

And then Knifehead happens.

Raleigh’s too busy running from that empty hole inside his head, his heart to remember anything else.

 

.

 

On the other side of the world, Chuck doesn’t forget.

 

.

 

He is trying to sleep ( _trying_ is the keyword because he thinks he’s bruised a rib after that whole clusterfuck with Raleigh, not that he’s gonna drag himself to the med bay to check it out) when someone thumps at his door. He’s sorely tempted to just ignore it but the thumps grow louder and more persistent, as if whoever it is at the other side is determined in making Chuck’s life even worse.

As if Raleigh Becket hasn’t done enough. 

Chuck stalks to the door and throws it open, about to lash out with a few choice expletives when he sees the face that peers back at him.

“Becket,” Chuck spits, bracing himself against the door jamb. His face twists into a scowl. The antagonistic act comes easy when he’s around Raleigh. Inside, however, he’s panicking over what a mess his face is and that he’s wearing a threadbare wifebeater that used to belong to Herc, paired with pyjama bottoms that have also seen better days. He must’ve looked ridiculous.  _Fuck_. Chuck hates his life. He scowls harder. “What do you want?”

Raleigh has this funny, half-squinty look on his face and he just stands there, staring at Chuck with his head tilted to a side like he’s contemplating the secrets of the universe. Chuck stares right back, resisting the urge to squirm under the weight of those blue, blue eyes and frantically trying to figure out the next course of action. It feels like a lifetime before Raleigh breathes out, “Shit.”

“ _What_?”

“You’re the kid,” Raleigh says and his face cracks into a large, pleased grin. He takes a step closer. Chuck takes a step back, more than a little bewildered at this turn of events. He wonders if he’d hit Raleigh’s head in their brawl earlier. “You’re Charles.”

Chuck is about to snap that  _yeah, mate, that’s my name glad you get that sorted out_  but the words stutter to a stop at the tip of his tongue once he realises what Raleigh is aiming at — recollection of a much younger Chuck, the one who introduced himself as 'Charles’ to his two favourite jaeger pilots in Manila. To his horror, he feels the telltale warmth of blood rushing to his cheeks, no doubt making his face turn that splotchy, unattractive shade of overripe strawberry he suffers when embarrassed.His current predicament only serves to make Raleigh’s grin cuts even wider and Chuck struggles to not slam the door on his face.

He settles on feigned nonchalance, never mind that he knows Raleigh knows that he knows Raleigh knows. “So?”

“You didn’t tell us you’re Herc’s son.” Raleigh is suddenly much, much closer and there’s a hand on Chuck’s shoulder, another one over the curve of his hip. Warm and reassuring and Chuck is five seconds away from hyperventilating because _what the hell is happening right now??_  Raleigh makes a low noise at the back of his throat. “ _Damn._  You really filled out, huh. You were just a little kid back then.”

Chuck retreats further into his room in an effort to curb the panic skittering along the length of his spine and only realises his mistake when Raleigh just follows him, step by step. The door snaps shut behind them. “Uh—”

“Is that why you’ve been picking fights with me?” Raleigh asks, unrelenting. “Because of what I said?”

“No,” Chuck somehow manages to choke out. He tilts his chin, defiant and grappling for control as his heart jackhammers away. “I didn’t care, mate. And I’m not a 'little kid’ any more.”

“Yeah.” Raleigh’s eyes turn a few shades darker. His grip on Chuck’s hip tightens, threatens to bruise and Chuck shudders. He presses his palms against Raleigh’s sweater-clad chest, but doesn’t push him away. His fingers snag at the soft-worn woollen material and his breath hitches when Raleigh pushes forward again. “Nothing little about you at all,  _Charles_.”

Chuck swallows thickly.

 _Oh. Shit_.

 

.

 


	19. in another lifetime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chaleigh. the boys living a normal life.

 

.

 

Raleigh is five feet away from the grocery store’s entrance when he feels his phone vibrating against his thigh. His brows crease in confusion when he realises that the muffled singing emanating from his pocket is a ridiculously upbeat tune about ‘ _licking lollipops_ ’ and ' _feelin’ real good_ ’ instead of the good-old default ringtone he’s accustomed to, but a quick glance at the screen reveals the culprit of this deviation. He flashes an embarrassed grin at a middle-aged woman who side-eyes him as she walks past and thumbs at the 'accept call’ slider.

“Very funny,” he says, trying very hard to convey displeasure but concedes that it’s a lost cause when he hears Chuck laughing from the other end of the line. 

Raleigh imagines the dimples carved deep into Chuck’s cheeks, a sight that still takes his breath away even after all these years together. A curl of something warm and languid settles in pit of his stomach, reminds him of home and he immediately wishes he’s by Chuck’s side at that moment. Just so he can press his fingers into those dimples and smother the laughter with kisses. 

“Took you long enough to pick up, mate,” Chuck drawls, mirth still bleeding from his voice. There’s faint barking in the background and Chuck coos a quick ’ _good boy, Max_ ’ before he returns to Raleigh. “Where are you?”

“I’m already at the grocery store, babe.” The moniker never fails to make him grin - the privilege of calling the once-prickly younger man affectionate nicknames is definitely one of the many perks in his decision to settle down. Chuck has resisted for a while, complains that he’s not anyone’s ’ _babe_ ’ or ’ _sweetheart_ ’ but there’s this soft, shy smile he always wear when he thinks Raleigh isn’t looking. “Did something happen?”

“Bring some candy with you.”

“Seriously? That’s not even food. I did not haul my ass—” Raleigh rolls his eyes when Chuck makes a wounded noise before going silent, probably making a variation of sad faces at the phone. It’s criminal how Chuck excels in guilt-tripping when he can barely handles normal emotions. “— _fine_. I’ll get you your candy.”

“Love you, Rals! Come back soon!”

Raleigh is aware that he’s grinning like a loon when he returns the sentiment with a ’ _love you too, babe_ ’ but he doesn’t really care.

Because his life right now? 

Is better than ever. 

 

.

 


	20. the high school au nobody asked for : outtakes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chaleigh. yancy/tendo (yanten/yando??). more hs!au apparently.

 

.

 

Raleigh talks too much. He jostles into Yancy every five seconds, mouths off about this junior from school ( _just got transferred, fucking Australian, but he’s pretty cute, yeah, did you see his dimples?_ ) and Yancy rolls his eyes because no, he isn’t in the habit of stalking unsuspecting juniors, dimpled or not. It’s bad enough that practice ran late yesterday, what’s with Coach heckling them over their new formation — he doesn’t understand a world where Raleigh is allowed to drag him out of bed too early in the morning and demand to be accompanied to a festival somewhere across town.

So far, Yancy isn’t impressed. He’s tired, hungry and _sleepy_ ; a combination designed to kill any desire to socialise.

“Why are we here?” Yancy dodges a pair of running kids and scowls when one of them spills melted ice cream onto his sneakers. “Remind me why I let you drag me to this.“

"Because you’re the best big brother anyone could ever have?”

“You say that every time you need a ride,” he grouses. “Try again.”

“And because I covered for your ass when you ditched practice last week.” Raleigh grins, all teeth, when Yancy scowls at him. “You owe me big.” He spreads his hands apart to illustrate the absolute _hugeness_  of Yancy’s debt to him, shitty little brother that he is. “Like Godzilla big.”

Yancy swats the side of his head and sighs in defeat. “Can’t I just nap somewhere? While you do whatever it is you want to do?”

“Nah, man. You’re missing the whole point of being here. C'mon!" 

Yancy want to point out that he’d rather  _not_ be here, thank you very much, but Raleigh’s enthusiasm pretty much overwhelms his crankiness and he allows himself to be dragged further into the congregation of people who are so cheerful, he finds himself personally offended. Raleigh buys popcorn and cotton candy and chocolate-coated marshmallows, convinces Yancy to play darts (he wins a small teddy bear that he throws at Raleigh’s face) and makes them stick their heads through holes in a cardboard cutout of a muscled man with his blonde and busty arm candy (Raleigh is the arm candy, of course). 

Yancy’s ready to call it quits when Raleigh, who has been devouring sugary treats at his side, jerks to a stop.

And inhales sharply. 

” _Yance_.“

Yancy knows enough to recognise  _that_  intonation. "No.”

“ _Yance, please._ ”

“Whatever it is, NO.”

Raleigh turns to Yancy, eyes wide and hopeful. He gestures wildly at a colourful tent several feet away and, amidst a cluster of giggling girls, Yancy makes out the sparkly ‘KISSING BOOTH’ overhead. Complete with giant lips made of velvet and a disturbing amount of red sequins tacked onto it. He’s about to point out that Raleigh doesn’t even like girls when he catches sight of the one manning the booth, and his brows crease into a frown.

“You planned this, didn’t you?”

Raleigh’s shit-eating grin is an answer in itself.

Yancy feels like punching him in the throat. “I hate you.”

“Love you too, big bro.”

Raleigh grabs his arm before he can escape and drags him bodily forward, ignoring Yancy’s protests and threats of disembowelment with enviable ease. Yancy stops protesting once he finds himself standing in front of the booth, Raleigh’s fingers digging deep crescents into his forearm and he swallows thickly when confronted with the wide, bright grin on the face of one Tendo Choi.

He’s going to  _kill_ Raleigh.

“Fancy seeing you here, Becket boys,” Tendo says, eyes flitting from Yancy to Raleigh. And then back to Yancy, accompanied by a raised eyebrow. He’s leaning against the counter, the sleeves of his pinstriped shirt rolled up to his elbows and the top few buttons left undone to reveal the lines of his collarbone. Yancy’s mouth goes dry when Tendo says, “How 'bout it? Five bucks for a kiss?”

Yancy vaguely hears giggling from behind him and a whispered ’ _ohmygosh hot guys kissing alert!_ ’

Fuck.

Raleigh jumps at that, pulling out a crisp twenty like he intends to tuck it into Tendo’s pants a la stripper club. A mental image Yancy doesn’t need, _holy shit_. “Give my brother a few, Mr Choi,” Raleigh crows, blissfully unaware of the murder plot unveiling inside Yancy’s head. He slaps the bill onto the counter and shoves Yancy forward. “My treat.”

Tendo collects the twenty and drops it into a half-full jar, and Yancy feels a brief stab of envy at the thought of others before him. It’s completely ridiculous because yeah, okay, he likes the guy and they’ve been doing this subtle flirty thing for a few months now (like him hanging out at Tendo’s locker after classes, Tendo going to his matches and breaking down the stats over celebratory hamburgers-and-fries, the not-so-casual hugs and hands-brushing etcetera etcetera) but they aren’t anything concrete. Yancy’s too afraid to fuck up what they already have to propose something more. And Tendo doesn’t push either, so they’re kind of stuck in a plateau. 

Raleigh calls him chickenshit and Yancy doesn’t really disagree. 

“Chuck’s at the back,” Tendo says to Raleigh, and Yancy glances at his brother because  _who_? He’s even more curious when Raleigh’s face lights up like it’s Christmas and Tendo laughs. “Don’t piss him off too much. We need his dimples to attract the customers.”

Raleigh frowns. “I told you not to let him do the kissing thing.”

“Don’t you have any faith in me, my brother?” Tendo leans closer and his voice drops into a whisper. “It’s bait-and-switch, man. We use him to lure people in and then let Aleksis kiss them.”

Yancy stiffens in horror. His eyes land on the hulking figure of their mutual friend at the back of the tent, the Russian exchange student whose biceps are probably bigger than Yancy’s head. “I’m gonna be kissing _Aleksis_?”

Tendo’s grin widens, eyes crinkling with mirth and he curls a finger in the cord Yancy wears around his neck, uses it to haul Yancy through the short distance between them. There are flecks of gold in Tendo’s warm, brown eyes that Yancy has never noticed before but he’s soon distracted by the lips pressed against his. The kiss is soft and chaste, ends before Yancy can swipe out his tongue for a taste, and Tendo withdraws with a wink. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather do yours.”

Oh.  _Oh._

Yancy reaches out, grabs Tendo’s shoulders and slammed their lips together. There’s tongue and teeth and someone’s screaming ’ _take a picture!_ ’ but Yancy doesn’t care because Tendo’s kissing back, taking everything Yancy has to offer and pushing back just as fiercely. They break apart gasping for air and Yancy rubs a thumb over Tendo’s lower lip, marvels at the kiss-bruised red and murmurs, "Gotta make each dollar count.“

Tendo nips at Yancy’s thumb and the laugh lines around his eyes make Yancy itch for more. "Don’t you know? Our motto is 'Satisfaction Guaranteed’.”

 

.

 


	21. from the other side of the your little universe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chaleigh. some new recruits realise that becket and hansen jr are something else altogether.

 

.

 

You’re not really sure if this is how Kwoon demonstration usually goes but, as you watch Mr Hansen Jr and Mr Becket circle and snap at each other from the edges of the mat, you think that your training in Kodiak hasn’t prepared you for any of this. You’ve memorised Mr Becket and Miss Mori’s drift compatibility run (you keep a video in your iPod, played in loop), always enchanted by the weaves of bo staffs, Miss Mori’s graceful lines and Mr Becket’s controlled strength. and when they told you that you’ll be visiting the Hong Kong Shatterdome, a chance to breathe the same air as your heroes, you nearly burst a vein trying not to scream.

You’ve looked forward to the Kwoon, to see the dance reenacted in front of your own eyes but when it’s Mr Becket and Mr Hansen Jr who stepped onto the mat, knuckles taped up and matching smirks on their faces, you are mostly bewildered.

And then horrified. 

Because right now, you have the front row seat to something that looks a lot like carnage, like two wolves locked in a terpsichore designed to destroy and devour and it’s something both beautiful and bloodthirsty that you can’t look away. 

“Shit,” Ada Maria hisses next to you, nails digging into your forearm. Her eyes are wide and you smooth a hand along the line of her spine, a poor attempt at comfort. “They’re gonna kill each other. _Shit._ ”

You grimace when Mr Becket narrowly dodges a punch meant for his face, pivots on his heel and lashes out to lock an arm around Mr Hansen Jr’s elbow joint. Who twists in time to avoid a takedown, muscles straining from the effort. You’re about to agree with Ada Maria, about to question _how the hell is this a demonstration on drift compatibility_ when you realise that the score sits at 1-1. You check your watch and it tells you that the two men have been going at each other for ten minutes, plus minus a few.

Which can’t be right.

You sneak a glance at Miss Mori, who watches the demonstration with a small smile on her face and you think you finally understand.

This is a whole different kind of compatibility. 

Becket-and-Hansen Jr is a world’s apart from Becket-and-Mori. 

You ease a hand over Ada Maria’s and keep your eyes forward. Mr Becket has somehow managed to drag Mr Hansen Jr down with him and they grapple for dominance amidst cheers and catcalls, hands and legs tangling into once incomprehensible mess. They’re laughing, bright and loud, and you settle back with a slow exhale. 

This is something you will need to memorise all over again. 

(Your iPod keeps two videos now, always on loop).

 

.

 


	22. three-halves of something else

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chanceigh. the becket boys don't share. except with each other.

 

.

 

It's one of the worst summers in history and the stretch of lonely road that cut through the desert seemed to go on for miles, for hours spent in silence and choking heat. Yancy’s idea of a roadtrip consisted of a map to nowhere, enough gas to cross a few borders and somehow convincing Herc to let Chuck tag along because Herc trusted Yancy more than he did with Raleigh. The radio had started spitting disjointed tunes several states ago, mostly drowned by threatening rattles from the engine but the ac still worked and that was what mattered.

Raleigh tipped his head back, kept his eyes on the road as Yancy, like any good big brother, regaled stories upon stories of Raleigh’s childhood embarrassment to Chuck. Who laughed low and warm at all the right places and didn’t even bat an eyelash when Raleigh rucked up his shirt to press a palm against the side of his ribcage. He leaned into the touch, automatic ease by now but his face still angled towards Yancy while his body yielded to Raleigh’s whims.

Raleigh didn’t need to look to know Yancy was also looking.

They found a motel what seemed like halfway across the world, weather-beaten building with a neon sign and faded green awning that would’ve looked at home in one of Hitchcock’s movies. Chuck looked dubious at their prospect of surviving the night but he didn’t protest when Yancy carded fingers through his hair, told him that ’ _nothing’s gonna happen while we’re here_ ’. Raleigh kicked the door open once the engine sputtered to a stop and grimaced, stretched out the kinks in his joints before he hauled their communal duffel bag over his shoulder.

His skin itched and he’d kill for running water, for a bed to sleep in after too many nights camped out under the stars with nothing more than a thick blanket between his ass and the ground. He turned to Yancy and said, “Two rooms." 

Yancy cocked his head, blue eyes not unlike Raleigh’s flashing with challenge. "Gonna cuddle up with me like the good, ol’ days, Rals?" 

"Wasn’t thinking of cuddling with _you,_ ” Raleigh demurred, because he never backed down from a challenge. Especially when it’s Yancy.  

Chuck’s smile was languid, too much cat-like for a dog owner. “Or we can just get a room. Big bed.”

Raleigh stared. He heard Yancy’s soft ’ _fuck_ ’ in the background when he took a step closer to Chuck, thought of crowding him against the car. Gravel crunched underneath his feet and he’s vaguely aware of Yancy closing in at the same time; the Becket boys, always in tandem (what Tendo used to say). Made him think of hyenas and Chuck’s eyes were bright, bright green even in the dying sunlight.

“I’m sure we can manage,” Yancy said, eventually. He glanced at Raleigh for a half-second and nodded. “Yeah?”

Raleigh wanted to protest because he didn’t share, didn’t know how to but one look at Chuck, at Yancy and he breathed out, “Yeah.”

Chuck hummed his approval, smile dipping into the promise of something slow and sweet.

 

.

 


	23. fifty shades of fuck you very much, kazinsky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hunsky (hunnam/kazinsky, in case you're wondering). once upon a time, charlie hunnam very nearly ended up in the fifty shades movie. rob kazinsky thought otherwise.

 

.

 

Charlie’s pretty convinced that this was all Rob’s fault.

Rob, who came by  _uninvited_  and shouldered his way into Charlie’s hotel room, armed with a bottle of red wine in one hand and a suspiciously familiar-looking paperback in another. Charlie made some indignant noises at the whole trespassing thing because  _what the fuck, Kazinsky, it’s one am how did you even find out where I am_  and also because he was in the middle of some pretty fucking personal downtime with his dick before the loud thumping on the door had jarred him out of that particular headspace.

Charlie secured the knot on his bathrobe, suddenly self-conscious to the fact that he’s not wearing anything underneath and scowled. He missed the comfort of home - at least there, he had convenient weapons stashed within arms reach to stave off a home invasion like what’s currently happening right now.

Never mind that Rob could probably dimple his way into anyone’s home if he wanted to.

The thought made Charlie scowl harder. "Do I want to know why you’re here?“

"This is an intervention,” Rob declared, brandishing the book like a weapon. Charlie saw its title, block letters over the dark, glossy cover and groaned. Rob’s smirk hitched so far into the smug territory that Charlie wanted to punch him. “Yeah, thought so too.”

“You’re gonna give me grief about accepting the role?” Charlie scrubbed a hand across his face, shoulder sagging. He’d been getting a ridiculous amount of phone calls and text messages since the news broke and the majority of them reiterated the same sentiment -  _why._  Even his mother called with her concerns and Charlie had just about done trying to convince people that he hadn’t lost his mind. The backlash was even worse than that role he took on for Queer. “The book’s not that bad.”

Rob raised an eyebrow. “Have you read it before?”

Charlie grimaced. “Uh. No?”

“If I knew I’m gonna have to exorcise the moron out of you, I would’ve brought holy water instead of wine.” Charlie should be offended but he was distracted when Rob kicked off his shoes and plopped onto the bed, bounced a few times until his weight settled. He patted the space next to him and levelled a grim look at Charlie. “C'mon. I’m gonna show you a whole new world of hurt.”

“This is stupid,” Charlie pointed out, because it was. And added, “You are stupid.”

That didn’t really explain why he found himself seating cross-legged next to Rob, tucking the flaps of the bathrobe around his thighs in an effort to not give the other man an eyeful of dick. Rob’s knee bumped his, jeans scraping against Charlie’s bare skin and he bumped right back, harder on purpose. He grinned when Rob was jostled to the side, nearly toppled off the bed and had to take a few seconds to right himself again.

He shrugged off Rob’s half-arsed glare. 

“Alright, you wanker, let the education begins." Rob thumbed the paperback open, lips curling in distaste, and started reading. ” _I scowl with frustration at myself in the mirror. Damn my hair – it just won’t behave, and damn Katherine Kavanagh for being ill and subjecting me to this ordeal. I should be studying for my final exams-“_

 

.

 

A whole bottle of wine and 134 pages of badly-written porn later, Charlie was equal parts homicidal and aroused. The urge to murder he attributed to that atrocious excuse of a book, which deserved a whole circle of hell dedicated to it and everyone who had ever lauded its repute. Throw in the editors who decided that this trash was suitable for public consumption and Charlie would consider himself happy.

The aroused part, on the other hand. 

Charlie watched Rob’s throat work as he read another passage of godawful fisting scene, the words barely registering in Charlie’s mind as he focused on the low rumble of Rob’s voice. Charlie wasn’t sure who had moved but they’re closer than they were at the start of the reading, one of Rob’s hands on Charlie’s thigh and one of Charlie’s curled around Rob’s lower back. 

Charlie blamed the wine. And also Rob, who had no business barging into Charlie’s hotel room without prior warning and saying ‘penis’ and 'erection’ and 'fingering’ over and over again. As if Rob’s lips were made to wrap around those all the time and that was a mental image Charlie didn’t need. He shifted, didn’t even realise that the bathrobe had somehow fell loose until he saw the expression on Rob’s face. 

"You’re hard,” Rob said, disbelief and wonder bleeding from his voice. Charlie’s dick twitched at that and Rob’s eyes darted from his lap to his face. “What—”

There were two ways this could go down. Charlie could just kick Rob out pronto and finished the job on his own, which was the smart and obvious choice to make.

Or.

“I guess intervention’s over." 

Charlie plucked the book from Rob’s fingers and tossed it behind him, heard it clatter against the far-off wall. He didn’t even hesitate when he shed his bathrobe and strong-armed Rob onto his back, hands already busy palming at Rob’s crotch and unbuckling the jeans as he was met with almost no resistance at all. He wasn’t surprised that he found Rob already hard — what made him swallow down a curse was that Rob had gone commando. 

He paused from the efforts of stripping to slam his mouth against Rob’s and they kissed like they fought, teeth and tongue and slurred ’ _yeah fuck yeahhh c'mon c'mon_ ’ in between. Charlie scraped teeth alongside Rob’s jaw, hands fingerpainting bruises up the heaving contour of his ribcage and Rob just whimpered, took it all and arched for more.

 

.

 

Rob had freckles on his shoulder. On his back. Everywhere.

_Jesus fucking Christ._

Charlie held Rob still as he sucked bruises after bruises to match the sprinkle of freckles scattered over milky-white skin.

 

.

 

"This is all your fault.”

Rob stirred at his side, nose wrinkling at the wisps of smoke curling from Charlie’s lips. His voice was hoarse when he said, “Way I remembered it,  _you_  attacked me, Hunnam,” and all Charlie could think about was how prettily Rob had screamed last night. And he still had hours to go before he was due for that meeting with his agent.

_Might as well._

Charlie stubbed the cigarette and rolled on top of Rob, grinding his hip down. He was awarded by a half-strangled whine, the reciprocal hip bucking and this was a lot better than anything the book could ever offer. Rob’s hands scrabbled for purchase and Charlie grabbed both wrists, pinning them to the headboard. Rob resisted for a good five seconds before the fight went out of his body and he sagged underneath Charlie. 

“Gonna tie me up,  _Christian_?” he mocked, breathless and eyes bright with something that looked suspiciously like want. “Show me the ropes?”

Charlie huffed a laugh and it’s more affectionate than exasperated. His grip on the wrists tightened. “Only if you behave,  _Anastasia_.”

“Shit, that’s one way to kill a guy’s hardon.”

“When I’m done with you, you won’t even remember your own name." 

Rob bucked up hard against Charlie. "Oh? That a threat?”

Charlie surged forward to lick a path from his collarbone to his ear, before nipping sharply at the lobe. He grinned when Rob’s breath hitched. “Nah, man. It’s a promise.”

 

.

 


	24. the power of moon compels you! (or something like that)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chaleigh. sailormoon au. yeah, i'm not really sure how this happened either.

 

.

 

The fifth time Gipsy Danger ‘accidentally’ flips his skirt, this one after a battle with the tragically ugly Otachi, Striker Eureka decides that enough is fucking enough. There’s only so much ’ _sorry it’s the backdraft from my elbow rocket_ ’ he can take before the whole thing becomes suspiciously like a manual on how to detect a sexual harassment in progress. It’s not that Striker is particularly self-conscious about flashing everyone with his panties — he’s saving the world in a cute outfit that consists of, among other, short-short skirt, after all; _besides_  his panties are super cute okay — but he just doesn’t like opportunistic assholes like Gipsy.

It offends the core part of him that is brought up on his father’s religiously feminist views. 

(Even if Gipsy  _is_ really handsome and dreamy.)

Twirling his magic staff in one hand, Striker steps delicately around shattered blocks of concrete to confront said opportunistic asshole. Gipsy is crouched over the slimy thing Otachi has thrown at them during their fight and he straightens when Striker is several steps away. He rakes a hand through honeyed-blonde locks, blue eyes peering out from his mask and really, _who wears a cape over a leather jacket, eww_. 

“We need to talk,” Striker says, pointing his staff at Gipsy. “Now.”

Gipsy grins and does this complicated curtsy that involves moving his arms into weird angles but he eventually stops after two minutes, probably because he senses that Striker is about to chant and open fire with his magic missiles. Instead of honouring his request like a true gentleman, Gipsy blows him a kiss and disappears in a twirl of leather-jacket-and-cape and exhaust fumes.

When he looks down, Striker belatedly realises that Gipsy, in his grand exit, has somehow flipped his skirt. Again. 

_I’m gonna kill that asshole the next time I see him._

 

.

 

Chuck smooths a hand over his uniform, fingers trailing the pleats of his skirt and the neat, ironed fold of his neckerchief as he waits at the junction off the Bone Slums for his always-late boyfriend. His hair is a bit tousled and he only manages to snag his adorable bulldog hairclip today because he wakes up late (this whole 'saving the world gig’ really cuts into his beauty sleep) and gets into an argument with his father over breakfast. Herc has insisted that he wears his skirt two inches below the knee, which is ridiculous. Any longer and people will start thinking that he’s a sukeban. 

“Morning, Chuckles.”

Wrinkling his nose at the petname, Chuck allows Raleigh to kiss him on the cheek in greeting. “I told you to stop calling me that!”

Raleigh laughs, warm and carefree, and wraps an arm around Chuck’s shoulder. It’s totally unfair how good-looking Raleigh is — Chuck always get distracted by his smiles and face and everything, and forgets to be angry. "Do you want me to call you 'cupcake’ then? How about 'sugarmuffin’?“

Sometimes, Chuck really wants to punch Raleigh’s good-looking face. "Ugh. I hate you so much.”

“No, you don’t.” Raleigh steers Chuck into the shadow of a sakura tree, pink blossoms covering them like one of those crazy-comfortable wool blankets Mako brings to their sleepovers. He brackets Chuck between strong, lean arms and moves closer, lips hitching into a soft smile. “You love me, yeah?”

Chuck isn’t even blushing, really! “No.”

Raleigh presses a kiss onto his lips, tongue flicking out against Chuck’s strawberry-flavoured lipgloss. “You’re a terrible liar, Chuckles.”

In Chuck’s defense, it’s really hard to be angry at someone when they’re kissing you. 

Especially if that someone is Raleigh.

Oh, well. 

At least Chuck has a boyfriend who is super hot and super good in kissing. It helps to keep his mind off horrible things like disgusting alien sea monsters trying to invade Earth and that skirt-flipping asshole, Gipsy Danger.

Raleigh kisses him again and Chuck melts a little bit more.

 

.

 


	25. we'll walk down this road together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chaleigh. more of the boys living life post-pitfall. in a related note, i love fluff.

 

.

 

Raleigh loved Sundays.

Sundays meant waking up after ten, with Chuck’s weight nestled to his side because the younger man was surprisingly cuddly when unconscious, warm and pliant and returns Raleigh’s kisses all slow and sweet and not-really-awake-yet. Sundays also meant brunch with Max scattering flour all over the kitchen floor and trying to lick the pancake batter, with Chuck laughing until he’s breathless and Raleigh chasing after Max for his wooden spatula. Chuck would steal half of the blueberries meant to go into the pancakes by distracting Raleigh with kisses. The pancakes would then burn a little (because Raleigh was easily distracted, completely Chuck’s fault) and they would eat the whole mess with too much butter. Max still ate more than both of them combined.

Sundays were also Grocery Shopping Day.

They would bicker over cereals and the brands of detergent and Chuck’s insistence at buying Max yet another chew toy (Raleigh’s convinced that they had enough bones to build a dinosaur). Their favourite cashier’s name was Anna and she flirted outrageously with Raleigh  _and_  Chuck, insisted that they kiss her cheeks after she had bagged their groceries because _it woulda been a shame if good-lookin’ boys like you two ain’t ever gonna kiss a gal_. She was fifty-two and left red lipstick smeared on their face as they stumbled laughingly out of the store. 

They spent Sundays doing nothing much afterwards. Chuck preferred lying in the couch with his head in Raleigh’s lap, reading an assortment of books he bought on a whim. Sometimes it’s one of the great classics, sometimes a chick lit. Sometimes he read autobiographies of people who were involved in the Kaiju War but those books usually ended up in the recycling bin Monday mornings. Raleigh had taken up knitting again and he told stories about Yancy and Jazmine while he went through balls of multi-coloured yarns because the memories didn’t hurt too much, not any more. (And because Chuck wasn’t one to ask even if he wanted to know). Raleigh didn’t shave and Chuck kissed him while complaining about beard burn.

They rented DVDs for Sunday nights. Raleigh would microwave some popcorns, popped a couple of beers and prayed that Chuck hadn’t picked up  _Moulin Rogue!_  again. Chuck’s taste in movies was as eclectic as his taste in books and, more often than not, Raleigh spent the next two hours (and once, a memorable three hours of Indian folk dancing and cheesy love story) running his fingers through Chuck’s hair as Chuck watched the spectacle on their large screen, enraptured. Still a little kid despite his war trophies, his dog tags. Max would curl at the foot of the couch and drooled on Raleigh’s pajama bottoms like the loveable menace that he was.

Sundays were perfect. Always.

Raleigh never thought of domesticity before. His life hadn’t been normal since he was seventeen, but what he had right now — all the Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays,  _Sundays,_ what he had with Chuck and Max and their little makeshift family was better than he anything could ever imagine.

 

.

 


	26. it's only gross because it's love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chaleigh. post-pitfall. chuck is not a morning person. unfortunately, raleigh is.

 

.

 

It’s six-thirty am _._

Chuck wonders if it’s too early to be contemplating homicide and then his brain stirs from the murky depth of sleep to remember that it’s _Sunday_. It’s six-fucking-thirty on a Sunday morning and he is (somewhat) awake. 

Homicide’s looking pretty good right now.

“—was thinking that we can see what Hong Kong has to offer, other than kaiju-dealing mobsters. I heard Tendo’s got this—”

He presses his face into the pillow, trying in vain to shut out Raleigh’s voice so he can go back to sleep and wake up at Normal-People-Hour. Like noon, for instance. Noon sounds very, very nice. Noon will also mean that the urge to punch Raleigh in the throat has abated into a more affectionate gesture, rather than the immediate need to _shut him up_.

He cracks an eye open, just a slit to see Raleigh peering down at him. Large grin cutting a jagged line across his face and sweat (from his morning run, no doubt) dripping from the tips of his hair. 

Onto Chuck.

If he isn’t so adamant on not getting out of bed, he would’ve tackled the unhygienic asshole into the ground for being so fucking gross.

“G'away,” he grumbles, burrowing deeper into the tangled mess of their blankets. “Leave m'alone.”

The bed dips, gravity pulling him closer to the edge and Chuck bites back a groan when a hand cups his hip bone, fingers rubbing circles into the stretch of exposed skin. Raleigh huffs against his shoulder blade and whines, “C'mon. Wake up.”

Chuck makes a valiant effort to wriggle away. His protest sounds a lot like, “Mmprhgh.”

The hand slides along the ridged muscles of his upper thigh, skims the line that leads to his groin and finally curls around Chuck’s morning wood after a few seconds of teasing. Raleigh’s laughter is warm and liquidy in his ear, and Chuck really,  _really_  wants to elbow the bastard’s kidney.Dirty cheater.

It doesn’t really help that his hip instinctively bucks into the slow, sure strokes. They undulate like that for a few minutes, punctuated by sighs and lazy, open-mouthed kisses.

And then Raleigh decides to ruin the moment. “At least now I know Little Chuckles’ livelier in the morning.”

Chuck figures that he’s completely justified when he reverse-headbutts the fucker in the face.

 

.

 


	27. the great injustice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chaleigh. yancy keeps stealing raleigh's boyfriend. that bastard.

 

.

 

Raleigh, in retrospect, shouldn’t have introduced Chuck to Yancy.

Not to say that it would’ve been possible for him to keep Chuck secreted away from his big brother, since the Beckets come in a pair (always), and Yancy kind of has to wade through the content of his head every time they are hooked up in Gipsy and the stimulator. Most of his thought centres around Chuck nowadays, which pretty much consist of Chuck’s mouth, tongue, hands, ass and  _oh god, kiddo, spare me the pornographic details holy fuck how come you haven’t sprained your penis by now_ has been Yancy’s staple grousing lately. 

Raleigh feels honour-bound to introduce Yancy to the man behind said pornographic details.

What he doesn’t expect is for the two to hit it off so well, they’re practically spending more time together. 

 _Without him_.

He eyes his bed balefully, which has been empty of one luscious, mouthy jaeger pilot for three consecutive nights. 

Mako’s smile is equal parts amused and sympathetic. “It seems like Chuck isn’t here.”

“Yeah,” Raleigh grits out, heads towards the desk for the few reports he has borrowed from Mako the day before. He finds them tucked between Chuck’s graphic novels and a manual on restoration of vintage cars. “They’re out there. Somewhere.”

“They?”

“He’s with Yancy.” He hands the reports to her, brows creasing into a scowl. "Painting each other’s toenails while gossiping about Australian soap opera, no doubt.“

Mako raises an eyebrow and Raleigh has a distinct impression that she’s trying not to laugh at him. "You sound jealous.”

Raleigh scowls harder. “No, I’m not.”

She hums in reply, doesn’t even bother to hide her grin and he herds her out of his quarter before he does something he might regret. Like asking for advice about this whole ’ _my boyfriend leaves me to bond with my older brother_ ’ situation. Because he’s not jealous, really. It’s just fucking unfair since Chuck is his boyfriend first.

Familiar laughter cuts Raleigh’s internal monologue short and he watches as Yancy and Chuck appear around the bend in the hallway. They are dressed in civilian clothes, the usual combination of band tee-shirt and faded jeans for Yancy, Gipsy’s signature jacket draped over an arm. Chuck, however, looks much, much younger in a henley, sleeves rolled to his elbows to showcase sinewy muscles and a pair of tight jeans that does a marvellous job in encasing his ass _just right_.

Raleigh’s pretty sure his mouth is as dry as Pentecost’s sense of humour.

“Hey, kiddo!” Yancy bellows cheerfully, because he’s a boyfriend-stealing asshole, and winks at Mako. “And Miss Mori, how do you do.”

She inclines her head, dark eyes crinkling with barely-concealed mirth. “Mr Becket. Chuck.”

Chuck grins and holds up a bottle of what looks suspiciously like Jack Daniels in a paper bag towards Raleigh. His eyes are glazed, probably halfway drunk already ( _goddammit, Yance! Herc’s gonna kill us!)_  and he crows, “We bought you a present, old man!”

“Don’t call me that,” Raleigh grumbles, even as he moves to wedge himself into the tight space between Chuck and Yancy. There’s one too many elbows bruising his ribs in his way in but Raleigh somehow manages to wrap an arm around Chuck’s waist, fingers slipping underneath the soft-worn fabric to rub at warm skin. He grins when Chuck shudders. “We should get you to bed, lightweight.”

“Mmkay,” Chuck mutters, stripped from his customary antagonistic shenanigans by the combination of alcohol and sleepiness. He’s wonderfully pliant as Raleigh peels the bottle from his hand and raises his arms to rest in a loose circle around Raleigh’s neck, nuzzling close. “Y'smell good, Rals.”

Yancy snorts. “ _Okay,_ lovebirds. Keep your pants on until we’re gone.”

Raleigh tosses the Jack Daniels at Yancy’s head and he’s almost disappointed when Yancy is still coordinated enough to snatch it mid-air. He pulls Chuck closer, relishes the noises that don’t quite get muffled against his skin and raises both eyebrows at his unwanted audience. “And when do you think you’re gonna get gone?”

Mako flushes, clutching the report to cover the lower half of her face as Chuck lets slip a low moan. “Now.”

Yancy nods. “Now would be a good time.”

Raleigh wordlessly jerks his chin at the door.

 

.

 


	28. size doesn't matter (sort of)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chaleigh. because red carpet pictures of rob kazinsky made me write a fic about chuck feeling self-conscious over his height difference with raleigh.

 

.

 

Raleigh does’t really understand what the hell is going on but he eventually comes to the conclusion that the universe isn’t done fucking with him. It’s not like he has enough emotional trauma to deal with, what’s with losing his brother while they’re connected in the Drift or, you know, nearly dying in an alien world after manually detonating his jaeger.

The universe can be an utter bag of dicks like that.

“Lover’s spat?” Tendo asks, setting down his tray of coffee and scrambled eggs across Raleigh’s. “You look like shit.”

He scrubs a hand over his face, feels the fine bristles of day-old beard against his palm and sighs. “Can’t have a spat when he doesn’t even talk to me.”

Tendo raises an eyebrow. “Yeah? What’s wrong?”

“Fuck if I know.”

And Raleigh really, really doesn’t. Things have just started to look up since the past two weeks - reconciling Chuck’s survival with Pentecost’s sacrifice, going through press conference after press conference with the strict reminder that they weren’t allowed to punch any member of the press and/or the politicians, as well as engaging in good-natured ribbing with the younger Hansen that led to an offer of a friendly spar that (somehow) led to mutual handjobs in the Kwoon’s shower. 

Chuck had made the sweetest noises when Raleigh kissed him under the spray of warm water.

That’s basically the point of no return for Raleigh.

It doesn’t take long until others realise that Chuck’s walking around the shatterdome in Raleigh’s lumpy sweater and that Raleigh has taken to stealing the Australian away from his work (on the proposed integration of jaeger-tech into general engineering) for quickies in convenient niches of the massive building. Mako, bless her lovely derrière, provides necessary emotional crutch to their fledging relationship in the face of Herc’s threats of siccing Australian wildlife at Raleigh’s general direction if he so much as make Chuck unhappy.

Raleigh thinks that her support is partly motivated by the large amount of money she has won off the betting pool but he’s not about to complain.

He needs all the help he can get, especially when he still hasn’t figured out  _how_ Herc manages to smuggle a taipan into the Hong Kong Shatterdome.

(The taipan now lives under his bed, in a glass case and swallows a disconcerting amount of mice every day. Raleigh calls it ’ _Australia_ ’, just because. Chuck calls it ’ _Pan_ ’, because he’s a psychopath.)

So, really. Things have been great. Until now. 

“I don’t get it,” Raleigh grumbles, poking at his eggs. “Last night, we were—”

Tendo grimaces. “Whoa, hold up, champ! If you’re venturing into the realm of TMI, you gotta give a guy some warning. I watch the kid grew up and I’d rather not know about who puts what into where.”

“I don’t even get to put anything anywhere.” Tendo’s face echoes a multitude of ‘please shut up’ that Raleigh ignores. Getting the cold shoulder (and subsequently zero amount of sex) kind of puts him in a pissy mood. “Some guys were taking pictures for their magazine and we’re having a laugh about how he’s gonna need some paddings in his boots if he’s standing next to me—”

“See, that’s your problem right there.”

Raleigh straightens in alarm. “What? What problem??”

“He’s feeling inferior,” Tendo says, even as Raleigh squints at him, skeptical. Tendo’s relationship advices are notorious for being alternately illuminating and so off the point that he once single-handedly triggered a divorce proceeding. Raleigh only decides to continue listening because he’s desperate. “Chuck’s spent his entire life playing poster boy for the jaeger program. Posturing’s second nature to him by now and then you came along, kicked his ass good and proper, saved the world from going down the toilet. Something _he_ should’ve done. Kid doesn’t need a reminder of the things he lacks when it comes to you, Becket boy.”

It takes Raleigh a good couple of minutes to process everything because. “ _Huh_.”

“… Whatever you’re thinking of doing right now, I don’t want to know.”

Raleigh’s grin is all teeth and he claps a hand against Tendo’s shoulder. “I owe you one, my man.”

 

.

 

In the end, Raleigh finds Chuck skulking around the hangar that used to hold Striker Eureka with all the cheeriness of a funeral procession. The crew looks suspiciously relieved when he drags Chuck off and he’s thankful for that because Chuck is screaming about ’ _this is fucking kidnapping, oi ya drongos, why aren’t ya stoppin’ this criminal_ ’ and ’ _I’m gonna cut off your balls and feed them to Pan if you don’t get your hands off me now, Becket_ ’. He dodges an elbow to the face and manhandles Chuck into the Kwoon, closing the door behind him.

Chuck’s glare speaks volumes of murderous intent. Raleigh, because everyone knows his survival instinct is non-existent, steps closer until his chest is millimetres away from Chuck’s. The glare intensifies as Chuck tilts his head _up_. “What the fuck do you want?”

It’s the easiest thing in the world to close the distance, lean forward and press an open-mouthed kiss onto Chuck’s parted lips. He swallows protests and noises and whatever else that spills in between, surges deeper and licks his way into that sweet, sweet mouth. 

“You're  _perfect_ ,” he pants, hands already tugging at belts and zippers and goddamned buttons. Chuck makes a pained noise and his tongue swipes the contours of Raleigh’s teeth, hips bucking to urge him on. “Fucking perfect. Fuck. I love your everything _._ ”

He pulls back, touches his forehead to Chuck’s as they both groans at the first stroke of friction and he keeps his eyes open, stares straight into desire-blown pupils. 

“ _I love you_.”

Chuck stills. “I—”

Raleigh swallows the words whole.

 

.

 


	29. the high school au nobody asked for : outtakes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pre-chaleigh. more hs!au. it grows like fungus.

 

.

 

Raleigh misses his old dorm.

The new one is spacious, stretches of white walls and pine-scented air everywhere he turns and he can’t quite bring himself to unpack. Boxes crowd around his ankles, sealed and marked with silly smiley faces instead of responsible, informative statements like ‘Raleigh’s Porn Collection’. Not that he has one but Yancy seems to think so, asshole of a big brother that he is. Raleigh stares at his neatly-arranged bed, tries to remember how much he wants, _needs_ this personal space.

“Oi, Becket.”

He frowns at the familiar drawl. “What?”

Chuck leans against the doorway, his expression hard and taunting. Raleigh tries not to notice the way the shirt stretches taut across his chest, the pull of muscles at his crossed arms and Raleigh’s sufficiently distracted when he reads something softer in Chuck’s eyes, the way he says, “It takes seven steps to get to your room.”

Sometimes, Raleigh doesn’t really understand what goes inside Chuck’s head. He doesn’t think he wants to, especially since the younger boy’s emotional spectrum swings from almost-nice to a written book on psychosis in three point five seconds. He theorises that it has something to do with Chuck’s Daddy Issues (deserving the capitals, to be honest) but Mako has forbidden him to ever point that out to Chuck. For fear of triggering another fist fight.

(Raleigh still has bruises from their first one; bastard doesn’t pull his punches)

He thumbs open one of the boxes. “Why were you counting?”

“Isn’t it obvious.” Raleigh wants to say that ‘ _obvious_ ’ isn’t really a word that can be applied to Chuck but he refrains. Mako would be proud of his self control. ”Now I know where you sleep.”

Before he can say anything, Chuck nods and walks off. 

Raleigh isn’t quite sure if that’s a death threat or an obscure ‘I might come into your room in the dead of night for sexy rendezvous’ thing. You can never know when it comes to Chuck. He spends five minutes just staring at the empty doorway, trying to decipher the mystery that is Chuck fucking Hansen.

Just in case, Raleigh locks his door that night, spends hours in the dark listening for footsteps in the hallway. He’s annoyed at himself when it’s disappointment he feels as his alarm clock goes off and the lock is still in place.

“You look like hell.”

Raleigh rubs at his eyes and crunches extra hard on his cereal because he’s running on next-to-nothing amount of sleep and god forbid if he isn’t allowed to be grumpy. Mako smiles at him from across the table and balances a buttered toast over the rim of his bowl, a peace offering. He shrugs and says, “Couldn’t sleep.”

“Mornin’, bogans.”

Raleigh looks up at Chuck’s grinning, radiant face — one that looks like he’s got enough beauty sleep to last a whole century — and feels like punching the little shit’s crotch in retaliation.

 

.

 


	30. say goodbye to your ghosts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> herc & tendo. post-pitfall. herc doesn't let go and tendo accompanies him all the way down.

 

.

 

Herc runs his second red light and Tendo’s hand shakes (only a little, just a twitch) when he brings the paper cup to his lips. The front of his dress shirt is peppered with coffee stains, dark against midnight blue, from the few times he’s jerked around unexpectedly sharp bends in the road. He doesn’t really remember where his bowtie is but he thinks it’s somewhere back in the shatterdome, probably gnawed on by Max. The road is framed by sweep of headlights, swallowed by darkness beyond that.

There could have been monsters out there but Tendo is pretty damned sure Herc would’ve swallowed them whole.

“I think I heard sirens,” Tendo says, mild. He looks at the rearview mirror and everything blurs behind them. Nothing reds and blues and he’s almost disappointed.

The car swerves sudden and sharp, burning rubber on asphalt. Herc steers with one hand. He twists the radio knob with his other and there are tinny voices cutting through the stifling confine of the car . “We’ll outrun them, mate.”

Tendo doesn’t ask exactly  _what_ Herc is running from because he thinks Herc himself doesn’t have the answer. He watches the way Herc fusses with the radio, changes one station after another without settling and he frowns. Jacks the seat almost horizontal and props his legs over the dashboard, heels clicking against windshield. He settles on a neutral ground. “Where’d you get the car?”

Herc’s face twisted into something indecipherable, even after the years Tendo has known him. It could’ve been anger, could’ve been grief. Could’ve been the kind of insanity bred into his system after his entire world collapses just to save other’s. “Chuck’s. He—” Herc swallows, expression twisting again (like swallowing nails, all the sharp things the world has to offer) and Tendo doesn’t reach out even if he wants to. “He wants to learn how to drive.”

 _Wants. Jesus._  He studies the lines of Herc’s jaw, swathed in shadows and something deeper than anguish. “Yeah? This is a pretty sweet ride." 

"Calls it his ‘baby’.” The needle on the speedometer races past a hundred and fifty, a hundred and sixty. "Works on it every goddamn day. Drives Striker’s engineers crazy because he keeps stealing their toolbox.“

Tendo sinks into leather upholstery, presses the back of an arm over his eyes. 

"He’s a good kid.”

Herc doesn’t say anything in return.

 

.

 


	31. domestication of wild animals: a documentary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chaleigh. post-pitfall. the boys went grocery shopping together.

 

.

 

Raleigh squints at the grocery list, mentally crossing out the ’ _two cans of baked beans_ ’ that comes after ’ _toilet papers and get the double-ply ones not generic, old man_ ’ as he tosses the cans right on top of Quilted Northern Soft & Strong. 

_Who cares if you wipe your ass with generic or whatever? I’m gonna be the only one touching it anyway._

He’s not even sure when he agrees to go grocery shopping in the first place but Chuck is a conniving little shit who has learnt to use blowjobs as a mean of getting Raleigh to do his bidding. Raleigh’s brain pretty much turns to mush afterwards because  _damn_ , the kid has a mouth like a Hoover vacuum and no gag reflex. It’s a fatal combination and he never stands a chance. Ever.  

Raleigh nudges the trolley forward with a disgruntled sigh, eyes skittering towards the fresh produce section where he has last seen Chuck. He finds the wayward Australian talking animatedly with a young lady in a colourful apron, something about the merits of avocados ( _what the hell??_ ) and the best way to grill a salmon ( _there’s more than one_ _???)_. He leans against the trolley, thinks that it’s ridiculous how young Chuck looks when he isn’t frowning and scowling and being an antagonistic ass in general, and he takes a few seconds to appreciate the way Chuck’s entire face lights up when he smiles.

It’s not long until he notices how the apron lady blushes and tries to inch closer to Chuck.

Who, for all his big talk and rockstar swagger, is as dense as a concrete wall when it comes to recognising signs of interest from the other party.

(Raleigh learns that the hard way.) 

He stops next to Chuck, snakes an arm around his waist and grins at the lady with all teeth. It’s very satisfying to see the blood drains from her face as the realisation that she’s flirting with another man’s _boyfriend_ sinks in, before she mumbles some excuses and scuttles away. Raleigh turns to Chuck and the grin softens into a smile. “You done?”

Chuck looks vaguely confused for a moment, before he frowns at Raleigh’s arm. Raleigh counts it as a small victory when Chuck doesn’t remove it and/or punch him in the face - there’s a ’ _keep your hands to yourself in public or I’ll break it_ ’ clause that comes with their relationship. “Yeah. Just need to get a couple bags of crisps for movie night and then we’re done.”

Raleigh wrinkles his nose. “Crisps?" 

"What?”

“You mean ‘chips’.”

Chuck’s lips curl into a smirk and he cocks his chin up defiantly. “ _Crisps_ , mate. Sorry, did I offend your delicate American sensibilities?”

“Technically, since we’re on American soil, you have to call them 'chips’.” He presses his fingers deeper, trying to find that spot just above Chuck’s hip that usually sends him into a giggling fit. He grins, wide and wicked, when Chuck shudders. “ _Mate._ ”

“Dirty cheater,” he grouses, breath hitching as he turns red. He twists and elbows Raleigh’s hand away. “C'mon then. Let’s get your bloody _chips,_ old man.”

Raleigh, carried away in his moment of triumph, grabs Chuck’s arm, tugs him close and presses a kiss just above his right eyebrow. “You’re cute when you’re flustered.”

He’s not really surprised when Chuck punches him in the face.

 

.

 


	32. fight the world

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chaleigh. yancy is the overprotective older boy. but not really.

 

.

 

Yancy stares at Raleigh, brows creasing into a frown. “Chuck? As in  _Chuck Hansen_ , Herc’s boy?”

Raleigh shrugs and drenches his pancakes with maple syrup. They are blueberry, kind of his favourite and nothing gives a man an appetite like the morning after a particularly rigorous night of making out and heavy petting. Bit of a pity that Chuck’s only seventeen — Raleigh isn’t about to go all the way with a minor, despite how pretty Chuck looks shirtless and spread out on Raleigh’s bed.

Mouthy too, all kiss-bruised lips and hooded eyes.

Raleigh’s getting a little hard just thinking about it.

“Yeah,” he eventually says, because Yancy’s glaring and _Jesus fucking Christ, what is your damage_. “It’s not m’fault the boy’s sweet on me.” He flexes his biceps, fork scraping against syrup-slick tray. “Everyone wants a piece of this.”

Yancy grimaces, like he’s two seconds away from punching the shit-eating grin off of Raleigh’s face and the only thing stopping him is the table between them. “I don’t like it.”

It’s Raleigh’s turn to frown. “What?”

“I don’t like you carrying on with Chuck." 

"Yance, I saw him first. He’s _mine._ ”

"It’s not that, you dumbshit. Look. I love you and you know I’d die for you but—” he pauses and his expression eases into apologetic, “—you’re kind of a philandering dick.”

Raleigh gapes.

"Remember that girl back in Anchorage? The cute techie redhead?”

“But she wasn’t—!”

"And Tendo’s cousin with the mullet and foot fetish?”

“I didn’t—!”

"The Secretary of Defense’s goddaughter? Those Russian contortionist twins? That weird guy who called you ‘honey bear’?" 

Raleigh sputters, chokes on chunks of half-chewed pancakes. “Okay, fine! What the hell’s your point anyway?!”

"You’re gonna break his heart, just saying,” Yancy sighs. He points his fork at Raleigh and it looks vaguely threatening. “And then Herc’s gonna go after you like he’s Schwarzenegger and you’re the fucking Predator. I’m not gonna bail your ass out of _that_ clusterfuck.”

"I’m—” Raleigh swallows his protests when he remembers the way Chuck had looked at him earlier that morning, wrapped up in his arms and legs tangled underneath the blanket. Sweet as sin. The shy, unsure kiss pressed against the corner of his mouth while they dressed each other, before Chuck practically bolted from the quarter. _Shit_. He meets Yancy’s eyes and squares his jaw. “I’m not gonna break his heart.”

It’s several seconds before Yancy nods, shoulders slumped in resignation. “Suits yourself, kiddo. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Raleigh grins. “What’s the worst that can happen, anyway? It’s not like anyone knows—”

“ _BECKET!!_ ”

Yancy tilts his head to look over Raleigh’s shoulder. His grimace returns full force once he sees Herc Hansen striding into the mess hall, still decked in Striker’s drivesuit and the promise of slow, _slow_  torture carved into his face. The older Hansen must have caught glimpses of his son’s recent memories in the Drift and — once he’s determined the poor bastard who has the audacity to touch Chuck — is now zeroing in for the kill.

Chuck trails after his father in a more sedate pace, looking equal parts annoyed and embarrassed at all the commotion. Yancy can maybe understand why Raleigh hasn’t wasted any time going after the kid — he’s a mix of adorable and defiance, rolled up in one gorgeous, lithe-muscled package. Yancy might have propositioned Chuck too, if not for the whole Protective-Father-Who-Once-Wrestled-A-Crocodile thing and the fact that Raleigh’s completely smitten over him. 

The one thing he will always have over Raleigh is a superior sense of self-preservation.

"I think your future in-law’s dropping by to say hello. Or skin you alive and string up your innards, I’m not sure.”

“ _Yance_ —”

“Warned you.” He calculates the distance between Herc and their table, figures that he has about two minutes to get out of the danger zone and picks up his tray. He claps a hand on Raleigh’s shoulder. “Good luck, kiddo. If I don’t see you after this, I’d let Jazmine know you went down fighting. And I’m taking the lower bunk.”

Raleigh makes a half-strangled noise that is either a curse or a desperate prayer to whatever deity that’s listening.

Yancy’s too busy escaping to notice.

 

.

 


	33. chuck's guide to surviving normalcy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chaleigh. post-pitfall. chuck can pilot a gigantic robot, but doesn't actually know how vacuum works.

 

.

 

Raleigh leans against the kitchen counter to enjoy the scene of chaos currently unraveling before him. He doesn’t even flinch when a dry floor nozzle flies inches past his left shoulder and clatters onto the floor. “You need some help there, buddy?”

“ _Motherfucker._ ”

“It’s just a vacuum cleaner, calm down.”

Chuck’s head snaps to the side, expression twisted into something that looks a lot like murder. He brandishes the plastic tube at Raleigh and rattles its attached hose, utterly hilarious despite the threat of decapitation that flashes in his eyes. “This doesn’t work.”

“We bought it yesterday." 

"Well,  _Rahhh_ leigh—” because of course Chuck is still a vindictive five-year old, even post-almost certain death, “—it doesn’t work _now_.”

Raleigh takes a sip of coffee, mostly to hide the quirk of a grin behind the porcelain mug. “It’s because you haven’t plugged it in yet.”

“… What.”

“The plug.” He gestures at the vacuum cleaner’s rear end, where the electrical plug rests in its slot next to the cords rewind button. Chuck looks confused for a second and Raleigh tries really, really hard not to laugh. “Power source. Plug it in. It doesn’t run on batteries, you know.”

In retrospect, he tells himself that he should’ve expected some kind of retaliation when Chuck, whose face flares tomato-red as soon as he realises his mistake, throws one of the spare plastic tubes at Raleigh’s head.

 

.

 


End file.
